SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR 
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A.    C.    McCLURG    &    CO. 
CHICAGO. 


SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR 


AND   OTHER    ARGUMENTS 


SOCIAL,   POLITICAL,  AND  PATRIOTIC 


BY 


RT.  REV.  J.  L.  SPALDING 

Btsfjop  of 


CHICAGO 

A.  C.  McCLURG   &   CO. 
1902 


REKSE 


COPYRIGHT 

A.  C.  MCCLURG  &  Co. 
1902 

PUBLISHED  NOVEMBER,  1902 


UNIVERSITY    PRESS    •    JOHN    WILSON 
AND    SON       •      CAMBRIDGE,    U.  S.  A. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR i 

II.  THE  BASIS  OF  POPULAR  GOVERNMENT.     .  33 

III.  ARE  WE  IN  DANGER  OF  REVOLUTION?      .  51 

IV.  CHARITY  AND  JUSTICE 69 

V.  WOMAN  AND  THE  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION     .  96 

VI.    EMOTION  AND  TRUTH 117 

VII.    EDUCATION  AND  PATRIOTISM 128 

VIII.    ASSASSINATION  AND  ANARCHY 13? 

IX.    CHURCH  AND  COUNTRY 149 

X.    LABOR  AND  CAPITAL    . 160 

XL    WORK  AND  LEISURE 172 

XII.    THE  MYSTERY  OF  PAIN i?8 

XIII.  AN  ORATOR  AND  LOVER  OF  JUSTICE     .     .  189 

XIV.  ST.  BEDE ,,....  201 


SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR 

AND    OTHER    ARGUMENTS. 

I. 

SOCIALISM    AND   LABOR. 

/T>HE  interest  which  all  who  think  take  in 
•*•      the  laboring  classes,   whether  it   spring 
from  sympathy  or  fear,  is  a  characteristic  feat- 
ure of  the  age. 

Their  condition  seems  to  be  the  great  anom- 
aly in  our  otherwise  progressive  and  brilliant 
civilization.  Whether  when  compared  with  the 
lot  of  the  slaves  and  serfs  of  former  times  that 
of  the  modern  laborer  is  fortunate,  is  not  the 
question.  He  is  not  placed  in  the  midst  of  the 
poverty  and  wretchedness  of  a  rude  and  bar- 
barous society,  but  in  the  midst  of  boundless 
wealth  and  great  refinement.  He  lives,  too,  in 
a  democratic  age,  in  which  all  men  profess  to 
believe  in  equality  and  liberty;  in  an  age  in 
which  the  brotherhood  of  the  race  is  proclaimed 
by  all  the  organs  of  opinion.  He  has  a  voice 
in  public  affairs,  and  since  laborers  are  the  ma- 
jority, he  is,  in  theory  at  least,  the  sovereign. 


2  SOCIALISM  AND   LABOR. 

They  who  govern  profess  to  do  everything  by 
the  authority  of  the  people,  in  their  name  and 
for  their  welfare;  and  yet,  if  we  are  to  accept 
the  opinions  of  the  Socialists,  the  wage-takers, 
who  in  the  modern  world  are  the  vast  multi- 
tude, are  practically  shut  out  from  participa- 
tion in  our  intellectual  and  material  inheritance. 
They  contend  that  the  poor  are,  under  the  pres- 
ent economic  system,  the  victims  of  the  rich, 
just  as  in  the  ancient  societies  the  weak  were 
the  victims  of  the  strong;  so  that  wage-labor, 
as  actually  constituted,  differs  in  form  rather 
than  in  its  essential  results  from  the  labor  of 
slaves  and  serfs.  And  even  dispassionate  ob- 
servers think  that  the  tendency  of  the  present 
system  is  to  intensify  rather  than  to  diminish 
the  evils  which  do  exist;  and  that  we  are  mov- 
ing towards  a  state  of  things  in  which  the  few 
will  own  everything,  and  the  many  be  hardly 
more  than  their  hired  servants.  In  America, 
they  admit  that  sparse  population  and  vast  nat- 
ural resources  that  as  yet  have  hardly  been 
touched  helped  to  conceal  this  fatal  tendency, 
which  is  best  seen  in  the  manufacturing  and 
commercial  centres  of  Europe,  where  the  capi- 
talistic method  of  production  has  reduced 
wage-earners  to  a  condition  of  pauperism  and 
degradation  which  is  the  scandal  of  Christen- 
dom and  a  menace  to  society. 


SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR.  3 

The  present  condition  of  labor  is  the  result 
of  gradually  evolved  processes,  running  through 
centuries. 

The  failure  of  the  attempt  of  Charlemagne 
to  organize  the  barbarous  hordes  which  had 
overspread  Europe  into  a  stable  empire  was 
followed  by  an  era  of  violence  and  lawless- 
ness, of  wars  and  invasions,  from  which  so- 
ciety sought  refuge  in  the  feudal  system.  The 
strong  man,  as  temporal  or  spiritual  lord,  was 
at  the  top  of  the  feudal  hierarchy,  and  under 
him  the  weak  formed  themselves  into  classes. 
The  serf  labored  a  certain  number  of  days  for 
himself,  and  a  certain  number  for  his  lord.  In 
the  towns  the  craftsmen  were  organized  into 
guilds  which  protected  the  interests  of  the  mem- 
bers. The  mendicant  poor  were  not  numer- 
ous, and  their  wants  were  provided  for  by  the 
bishops  and  the  religious  orders. 

Then  the  growth  of  towns  and  the  develop- 
ment of  trade  and  commerce  brought  wealth  to 
the  burghers,  who  became  a  distinct  class,  while 
domestic  feuds  and  foreign  wars,  especially 
the  Crusades,  weakened  and  impoverished  the 
knights  and  barons.  The  printing-press  and 
the  use  of  gunpowder  in  war  helped  further  to 
undermine  the  feudal  power,  while  the  discov- 
ery of  America,  the  turning  of  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope,  and  the  Protestant  revolution  threw  all 


4  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

Europe  into  a  ferment  from  which  new  social 
conditions  were  evolved.  The  peasants  who 
had  been  driven  from  the  land  by  the  decay  of 
the  great  baronial  houses,  and  the  confiscation 
of  the  property  of  the  church,  flocked  into  the 
towns  or  became  vagabonds.  The  poor  became 
so  numerous  that  permanent  provision  had  to 
be  made  for  them,  and  poor  laws  were  conse- 
quently devised.  It  was  the  contemplation  of 
their  misery  which  caused  Sir  Thomas  More 
to  write  the  following  words,  which  sound  as 
though  they  had  been  taken  from  some  modern 
Socialist  address : 

"  Therefore,  I  must  say  that,  as  I  hope  for 
mercy,  I  can  have  no  notion  of  all  the  other  gov- 
ernments that  I  see  or  know  than  that  they  are  a 
conspiracy  of  the  rich,  who  on  pretence  of  man- 
aging the  public,  only  pursue  their  private  ends, 
and  devise  all  the  ways  and  arts  they  can  find 
out;  first  that  they  may  without  danger  preserve 
all  that  they  have  so  ill  acquired,  and  then  that 
they  may  engage  the  poor  to  toil  and  labor  for 
them  at  as  low  rates  as  possible,  and  oppress  them 
as  much  as  they  please.  And  if  they  can  but  pre- 
vail to  get  these  contrivances  established  by  the 
show  of  public  authority,  which  is  considered  as 
the  representative  of  the  whole  people,  then  they 
are  accounted  laws." 

The  master-workman  who  in  the  middle  ages 
employed  but  two  or  three  apprentices  and  as 


SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR.  5 

many  journeymen,  gave  way  to  a  class  of  capi- 
talists, enriched  by  the  confiscated  wealth  of  the 
church,  by  the  treasures  imported  from  America 
and  the  Indies,  and  by  the  profits  of  the  slave- 
traffic,  who  at  once  prepared  to  take  advantage 
of  the  stimulus  to  industry  given  by  the  open- 
ing of  a  vast  world  market.  As  late  as  the 
middle  of  the  last  century,  however,  manufac- 
turing was  still  carried  on  by  masters  who  em- 
ployed but  a  small  number  of  hands,  and  had 
but  little  capital  invested  in  the  business;  and 
the  modern  industrial  era,  with  its  factory  sys- 
tem, properly  begins  with  our  marvellous  me- 
chanical inventions  and  the  use  of  steam  as  a 
motive  power.  Machinery  made  production  on 
a  large  scale  possible,  and  threw  the  whole  busi- 
ness into  the  hands  of  capitalists,  while  laborers 
are  left  with  nothing  but  their  ability  to  work, 
which  they  are  forced  to  sell  at  whatever  price 
it  will  bring.  The  capitalist's  one  aim  is  to 
amass  wealth,  and  he  buys  human  labor  just  as 
he  buys  machinery  or  raw  material,  at  the  low- 
est rate  at  which  it  can  be  obtained.  It  is  either 
denied  that  the  question  of  wages  has  an  ethical 
aspect,  or  it  is  maintained  that  the  competition 
among  capitalists  themselves,  which  under  the 
present  system  of  production  is  inevitable, 
compels  employers  to  ignore  considerations  of 
equity.  Hence  it  comes  to  be  held  that  what- 


6  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

ever  increases  profits  is  right.  The  hours  of 
labor  are  prolonged,  the  sexes  are  intermingled, 
children  are  put  to  work  in  factories,  sanitary 
laws  are  violated ;  wares  are  made  in  excess  of 
demand;  and,  in  consequence  of  the  resulting 
glut  of  the  markets,  wages  are  still  further  low- 
ered or  work  is  stopped;  and  the  laborers, 
whether  they  continue  to  work  or  whether  they 
strike,  or  are  forced  into  idleness,  are  threat- 
ened with  physical  and  moral  ruin.  The  fur- 
ther development  of  the  system  is,  in  the  opinion 
of  many  observers,  towards  the  concentration 
of  capital  in  immense  joint-stock  companies  and 
syndicates,  whose  directors,  by  buying  compet- 
ing concerns  and  also  legislatures  and  judges, 
make  opposition  impossible,  and  render  the  con- 
dition of  laborers  still  more  hopeless. 

This  brief  sketch  of  the  history  and  nature 
of  industrialism  is  sufficient  to  account  for  the 
existence  of  the  various  socialistic  theories  and 
movements  of  the  present  day.  The  word  So- 
cialism, which  first  came  into  use  in  the  early 
part  of  the  nineteenth  century,  stands  rather  for 
a  tendency  than  for  a  definite  body  of  principles 
and  methods,  and  this  tendency  is  one  of  which 
men  of  very  different  and  even  opposite  opin- 
ions approve:  and  a  Socialist  may  be  a  theist 
or  an  atheist,  a  spiritualist  or  a  materialist,  a 
Christian  or  an  agnostic.  The  general  impli- 


SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR.  / 

cation  is  the  need  of  greater  equality  in  the  con- 
dition of  human  beings.  The  aim,  therefore, 
is  to  bring  about  a  social  arrangement  in  which 
all  will  receive  a  fair  share  of  the  good  things 
of  life ;  and  the  best  way  to  secure  this,  Social- 
ists commonly  think,  is  to  render  the  will  of 
the  individual  more  completely  subordinate  to 
that  of  the  community.  The  methods  by  which 
this  may  be  accomplished  are  not  necessarily 
violent  or  revolutionary.  In  the  opinion  of 
many  serious  writers,  Socialism  is  the  logical 
outcome  of  tendencies  which  are  held  to  pre- 
vail throughout  the  civilized  world.  Our  views 
of  liberty,  equality,  and  fraternity,  they  say, 
must  necessarily  lead  not  merely  to  the  reign 
of  the  people,  to  a  universal  democracy,  but 
must  embody  themselves  in  a  State  which  will 
own  both  land  and  capital,  and  will  control 
both  production  and  distribution;  for  only  in 
this  way  can  all  be  made  free  and  equal,  and 
the  brotherhood  of  the  race  become  something 
better  than  ironical  cant.  Already  the  State 
has  widened  its  sphere  of  action.  It  has  passed 
laws  to  regulate  industry,  it  has  taken  charge 
of  education,  and  there  are  many  indications 
that  the  tendency  is  to  assume  that  whatever 
concerns  the  health,  happiness,  and  morals  of 
the  people  should  be  subject  to  State  control. 
The  massing  of  capital  in  great  corporations  is 


8  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

the  beginning  of  a  movement,  it  is  thought, 
which  will  end  in  the  transference  of  all  capital 
to  the  one  sole  corporate  State.  The  different 
labor  unions  and  cooperative  societies  are  re- 
garded as  schools  in  which  the  working  classes 
are  receiving  the  education  needed  to  prepare 
them  for  the  task  of  universal  intelligent  co- 
operation. The  Socialists  hold,  also,  that  the 
moral  progress  of  the  modern  world  points  in 
the  same  direction.  There  is  a  wider  sym- 
pathy, a  new  sense  of  justice,  a  desire  to  come 
to  the  help  of  the  weak  and  wronged,  a  con- 
sciousness of  the  responsibility,  not  of  individ- 
uals alone  but  of  society,  which  must  lead  to 
a  readjustment  of  the  social  order  in  accord- 
ance with  the  sentiments  of  the  more  humane 
temper  which  is  characteristic  of  our  age.  And 
is  not  all  this,  in  part  at  least,  a  result  of  the 
teaching  and  example  of  Christ  himself,  who 
came  to  preach  the  Gospel  to  the  poor,  to  heal 
the  infirm  and  to  bring  relief  to  the  overbur- 
dened, and  who  thus  gave  the  impulse  which 
has  finally  developed  into  our  humanitarian 
faith,  hope,  and  love?  A  large  number  of  So- 
cialists, it  is  true,  are  atheists  and  material- 
ists, but  the  earnest  desire  to  discover  some 
means  whereby  justice  may  be  done  the  people, 
whereby  they  may  be  relieved  from  their  pov- 
erty and  misery,  and  the  resulting  vice  and 


SOCIALISM  AND   LABOR.  9 

crime,  is  in  intimate  harmony  with  the  gentle 
and  loving  spirit  of  Him  who  passed  no  sor- 
row by. 

From  the  general  principle  that  it  is  the  duty 
of  the  rich  and  strong  to  use  at  least  part  of 
their  wealth  and  strength  in  the  service  of  their 
fellow-men,  and  first  of  all  in  the  service  of 
the  poor  and  helpless,  no  good  or  wise  man 
will  dissent.  Here,  then,  is  a  common  ground 
whereon  all,  whatever  their  philosophic  and 
religious  opinions  and  beliefs  may  be,  can  meet. 
Disagreement  arises  only  when  we  come  to  dis- 
cuss how  this  may  best  be  done.  If,  however, 
the  discussion  is  to  be  useful,  it  is  necessary 
that  we  first  get  a  true  view  of  the  condition  of 
the  classes  to  whose  relief  we  wish  to  come. 

Are  the  evils  from  which  they  suffer  really 
as  great  and  desperate  as  the  Socialist  agi- 
tators would  have  us  believe?  Are  laborers 
worse  paid,  worse  fed,  worse  clothed,  and  worse 
housed  than,  for  instance,  in  the  early  part  of 
the  nineteenth  century  ?  Do  they  labor  a  greater 
number  of  hours,  and  is  their  work  more  severe 
and  exhausting  now  than  then? 

Is  the  tendency  of  present  conditions  to  make 
them  unintelligent,  brutal,  and  reckless?  Is  the 
actual  economic  system  an  organization  of  the 
ruling  classes  to  keep  the  laborers  in  poverty 
and  permanent  subjection?  Is  it  a  fact,  in  a 


IO  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

word,  that  we  are  drifting  towards  a  state  of 
things  in  which  the  few  shall  own  everything 
and  the  many  nothing? 

If  these  questions  are  to  receive  an  affirma- 
tive answer,  then  the  method  of  production 
by  private  competitive  capital  should  be  con- 
demned, for  it  not  only,  in  this  case,  works 
injustice  to  large  multitudes,  but  must,  if  per- 
mitted to  continue  in  operation,  finally  lead  to 
social  ruin.  It  is  easily  intelligible  that  those 
who  believe  that  private  capitalism  is  essentially 
vicious,  should  look  to  Socialism  as  a  ground 
for  hope,  and  that  they  should  find  in  the  sup- 
posed tendencies  of  the  present  economic  de- 
velopments a  reason  for  thinking  that  the  reign 
of  individualism  is  nearing  its  end. 

The  democracy,  upon  which  light  is  stream- 
ing from  many  sources,  which  all  the  forces 
and  struggles  of  society  are  helping  to  organize 
more  thoroughly,  and  which  is  rapidly  becom- 
ing conscious  of  its  superior  power,  could  not 
be  expected  to  accept  as  permanent  a  system 
which  makes  of  the  mass  of  the  people  a  herd 
of  proletarians,  dependent  upon  uncertain  wage- 
labor.  Already,  under  democratic  influence, 
the  State  has  assumed  functions  formerly  per- 
formed by  individuals,  families,  and  minor 
communities,  and  under  the  pressure  of  the 
growing  sense  of  the  responsibility  of  society 


SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR.  1 1 

for  the  welfare  of  all  its  members,  it  tends  to 
widen  the  sphere  of  its  activity  and  to  take 
greater  control  of  the  lives  of  citizens. 

And  as  it  always  happens  when  the  stream 
of  tendency  sets  strongly  in  a  given  direction, 
those  who  oppose  not  less  than  those  who  favor 
hasten  the  coming  of  the  new  order.  Events, 
in  fact,  solve  the  great  problems,  and  our  dis- 
cussions are  but  the  foam  that  crests  the  waves. 
Thus,  it  is  conceivable  that  the  efforts  of  com- 
petitive capital  to  save  itself  by  forming  colos- 
sal companies  and  syndicates,  may  be  found  in 
the  end  to  facilitate  the  transference  of  the 
whole  to  the  collective  management  of  society. 

The  era  of  the  small  producer,  it  is  plain, 
has  passed  away.  Indeed,  the  greatest  suf- 
ferers among  laborers,  at  present,  are  the  vic- 
tims of  what  is  known  as  the  Sweating  System, 
which  is  an  unhealthy  survival  of  the  method 
of  domestic  production.  If  the  choice,  then,  is 
between  the  massing  of  capital  in  a  few  hands 
and  its  complete  control  by  the  State,  there  can 
be  little  doubt  as  to  what  the  final  decision 
will  be. 

But  the  question  whether  the  Socialist  view 
of  the  actual  condition  of  labor  and  of  the  ten- 
dencies of  the  present  economic  order,  is  the 
true  view,  still  remains  to  be  answered. 

There  are  reasons  which  should  lead  us  to 


12  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

look  upon  the  assertions  of  the  Socialist  agita- 
tors with  a  certain  distrust.  The  temper  of  re- 
formers is  enthusiastic,  and  hence  they  almost 
inevitably  exaggerate  the  evils  they  seek  to 
correct.  The  crowd  is  fond  of  reckless  state- 
ment, and  its  leaders  not  unfrequently  win  and 
hold  their  preeminence  by  the  boldness  with 
which  they  deal  in  passionate  rhetoric.  It  is 
well  known,  too,  that  when  patients  begin  to 
improve  they  become  irritable;  and  this  is  true 
also  of  suffering  bodies  of  men.  The  hopeless 
become  resigned.  The  negro  slaves  began  and 
ended  the  day's  work  to  the  sound  of  their  own 
melodies;  and  when  women  were  treated  like 
slaves  the  indignities  they  suffered  called  forth 
no  clamorous  protests.  The  discontent  and  agi- 
tation which  now  exist  among  the  working 
classes  are  not,  then,  a  proof  that  their  condi- 
tion is  altogether  evil  or  that  it  is  growing 
worse,  while  the  testimony  of  the  leaders  in 
the  labor-movements  is,  for  the  reasons  I  have 
given,  open  to  suspicion. 

No  enlightened  mind  doubts  the  superiority 
of  our  civilization  to  that  of  all  preceding  cen- 
turies, and  yet  when  was  there  ever  so  much 
fault-finding  as  now  with  the  evils  and  short- 
comings of  political,  social,  and  domestic  life? 

We  have  even  a  literature  which  proclaims 
that  life  itself  is  worthless;  and  there  are  evi- 


SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR.  13 

dently  a  number  of  readers  who  are  interested 
in  arguments  which  go  to  show  that  marriage, 
free  institutions,  popular  education,  civiliza- 
tion, and  Christianity  have  all  broken  down 
and  failed  to  bring  the  good  they  promised 
and  which  the  human  heart  craves. 

Our  gains  seem  to  have  served  only  to  make 
us  more  conscious  of  what  we  still  lack,  and 
in  the  light  of  our  intellectual,  moral,  and  ma- 
terial progress  we  easily  persuade  ourselves  that 
what  has  been  achieved  is  little  more  than  the 
promise  of  better  things  to  be.  Then  our  im- 
plements of  almost  magical  power  and  delicacy, 
and  the  ease  and  rapidity  with  which  by  their 
aid  we  are  able  to  overcome  mere  physical 
obstacles,  have  made  us  impatient.  We  rebel 
against  the  teaching  which  inculcates  the  wis- 
dom of  making  haste  slowly,  and  we  imagine 
that  by  teaching  people  to  read  and  write,  and 
by  proper  legislative  enactments,  we  may  do 
away  with  ignorance,  poverty,  and  crime  as 
easily  as  we  drain  swamps  or  recover  ex- 
hausted soil.  In  this  our  temper  is  unphilo- 
sophic  and  misleading.  Social  development 
depends  upon  laws  which  legislation  can  modify 
only  to  a  limited  extent,  and  a  prerequisite  to 
all  effective  and  desirable  social  transforma- 
tions is  a  corresponding  change  in  the  character 
of  both  the  masses  and  their  rulers  and  em- 


14  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

ployers.  Now,  alterations  in  the  character  of 
a  people  are  the  result  of  slow  processes,  car- 
ried on  through  successive  generations,  and 
hence  it  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  a  change 
in  the  machinery  of  government  will  suddenly 
produce  an  equivalent  change  in  the  thought 
and  conduct  of  men.  The  futility  of  mere 
paper  constitutions  has  been  proven  by  experi- 
ments which  leave  no  room  for  doubt.  Mexico, 
for  example,  has  had  republican  institutions 
since  the  early  part  of  this  century,  but  the 
condition  of  the  masses  of  its  people  is  little 
better  than  was  that  of  the  slaves  in  the  South- 
ern States. 

Putting  aside,  then,  as  impracticable  all 
schemes  for  bringing  on  an  era  of  universal 
comfort  and  contentment  by  mechanical  changes 
in  the  constitution  of  society,  let  us  strive  to 
get  a  clear  view  of  the  results  and  tendencies 
of  the  actually  existing  system  of  competitive 
capitalistic  production. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  a  fact  that,  neither  in 
Europe  nor  in  the  United  States,  is  there  a 
chasm  between  the  enormously  rich  and  the 
very  poor,  but  there  is  a  gradation  of  posses- 
sion from  the  beggar  to  the  great  capitalist. 
Most  of  what  is  said  about  the  poverty  and 
misery  of  the  working  class  is  applicable  only 
to  what  has  been  called  the  social  residuum, 


SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR.  15 

which  may  be  compared  to  the  stragglers  and 
camp-followers  of  an  army;  and  the  social 
gulf  is  not  between  rich  men  and  steady,  thrifty 
laborers,  but  rather  between  these  latter  and  the 
crowd  of  loafers  and  criminals.  That  the  cause 
of  this  disparity  of  condition  is  moral  rather 
than  economic,  whoever  observes  may  see;  and 
this  fact  gives  emphasis  to  the  great  truth  that 
all  real  amelioration  in  the  lot  of  human  beings 
depends  on  religious,  moral,  and  intellectual 
conditions.  Money  does  not  make  a  miser  rich 
nor  its  lack  a  true  man  poor.  The  most  com- 
petent authorities,  basing  their  opinion  upon 
exhaustive  statistical  study  and  careful  obser- 
vation, hold  that  the  condition  of  laborers 
during  the  industrial  period  has  been  one  of 
gradual  improvement.  In  England,  from  1688 
to  1800,  there  was  an  increase  of  less  than  fifty 
per  cent  in  the  number  of  laborers,  and  an  in- 
crease of  six  hundred  and  ten  per  cent  in  their 
total  earnings;  and  from  1800  to  1883  workers 
increased  a  little  over  four  hundred  per  cent 
and  their  income  about  six  hundred  per  cent. 
Wages  have  risen  both  in  amount  and  in  pur- 
chasing power.  The  hours  of  labor  have  be- 
come fewer  and  the  rate  of  mortality  has 
decreased.  "  Taken  as  a  whole/'  says  Profes- 
sor Levi,  who  is  a  recognized  authority  on 
questions  of  statistics,  "  the  working  classes  of 


1 6  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

the  United  Kingdom  may  be  said  to  be  stronger 
in  physique,  better  educated,  with  more  time  at 
their  command,  in  the  enjoyment  of  greater 
political  rights,  in  a  more  healthful  relation 
towards  their  employers,  receiving  higher  wages 
and  better  able  to  effect  some  savings,  in  1884 
than  they  were  in  1857."  And  in  England  the 
conditions  are  less  favorable  to  the  laboring 
classes  than  in  some  other  countries,  far  less 
favorable  than  they  are  in  our  own.  It  is 
densely  populated ;  it  imports  much  of  its  food ; 
nearly  all  the  land  is  owned  by  a  few  thousand 
families;  its  workmen  have  been  crippled  and 
dwarfed  by  laws  made  in  the  interest  of  em- 
ployers; and  production  and  distribution  are 
regulated  according  to  the  principles  of  free 
trade,  which  we  here  in  America,  at  least,  are 
taught  to  believe  has  a  tendency  to  lower 
wages. 

In  the  United  States,  it  is  plain,  there  is  no 
gulf  between  the  very  rich  and  the  very  poor, 
but  a  gradation  of  widely  distributed  wealth. 
More  than  eight  million  families  are  land- 
owners, and  of  the  thirteen  million  families 
among  whom  the  wealth  of  the  country  is  di- 
vided, eleven  million  families  are  said  to  belong 
to  the  wage-earning  class.  We  have,  indeed,  a 
few  enormously  rich  men,  but  it  will  be  found 
difficult  to  hold  these  great  fortunes  together, 


SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR.  I/ 

and  if  plutocrats  should  persist  in  abusing 
the  power  which  money  gives,  the  people  will 
know  how  to  protect  themselves  against  the 
tyrants. 

If  private  property  is  not  a  crime,  and  that 
it  is  not  even  radical  Socialists  admit,  then 
wealth  however  great,  if  it  be  honestly  acquired 
and  justly  used,  must  be  respected.  Much  of 
the  material  progress  of  our  country  is  due  to 
the  energy  and  foresight  of  men  who,  if  they 
have  grown  rich  themselves,  have  made  pos- 
sible the  comfortable  and  independent  exist- 
ence of  thousands.  Diatribes  against  wealthy 
men  oftener  spring  from  unworthy  passions 
than  from  any  sense  of  wrongs  inflicted  by 
them.  Duties  and  responsibilities  are  personal, 
and  the  poor  are  bound  not  less  than  the  rich 
to  do  what  they  are  able  to  promote  the  com- 
mon welfare.  The  obligation  of  service  is  uni- 
versal, and  to  encourage  jealousy  and  hatred 
of  the  rich  among  the  poor  is  to  do  harm  to 
the  interests  and  character  of  both.  If  the  rich 
are  sometimes  selfish  and  heartless,  they  are 
quite  as  often  generous  and  helpful.  Like  other 
men,  they  are  conscious  of  the  irresistible  lean- 
ing of  human  nature  to  the  side  of  justice,  and 
if  a  sort  of  all-embracing  good-will  is  charac- 
teristic of  Americans,  we  may  hope  that  all 
efforts  to  cause  class-hatred  to  prevail  here  will 


1 8  SOCIALISM  AND   LABOR. 

prove  futile.  At  all  events,  the  condition  of 
laborers  under  the  regime  of  competitive  pro- 
duction, whatever  grievances  they  still  may 
have,  are  not  so  desperate  as  to  make  us  will- 
ing to  run  the  risk  of  putting  in  jeopardy  the 
two  things  we  have  learned  to  value  the  most 
—  Liberty  and  Individuality. 

Many  of  our  social  arrangements  are  doubt- 
less provisional  only.  In  various  ways  our  age 
is  transitional,  and  such  an  age  is  necessarily 
one  of  exceptional  hardship  for  the  weak;  but 
in  an  era  of  change  the  last  thing  the  wise  will 
counsel  is  the  rushing  into  visionary  and  un- 
tried schemes  of  reform;  and  such  a  scheme, 
where  there  is  question  of  a  whole  people,  the 
New  Socialism  certainly  is.  In  small  commu- 
nities even  the  Socialist  theory  has  been  found 
impracticable  except  where  celibacy  has  been 
made  a  condition  of  membership.  The  social 
order  is  an  organism  infinitely  complex,  the 
outcome  of  many  forces,  whose  action  and  in- 
teraction, beginning  in  the  obscure  and  mystefi- 
ous  regions  where  life  and  mind  first  manifest 
themselves,  have  been  going  on  for  unnum- 
bered ages;  and  it  has  so  intertwined  itself 
with  man's  very  nature  that  we  may  say  he  is 
what  he  is  in  virtue  of  the  society  of  which  he 
is  the  product.  By  it  our  language,  our  litera- 
ture, our  laws,  and  much  of  our  religion  have 


SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR.  19 

been  developed.  To  make  desirable,  or  possible 
even,  a  radical  change  in  this  order,  such  as 
that  implied  by  Socialism,  our  nature  itself 
would  have  to  become  other.  Until  this  changes, 
man  will  continue  to  believe  that  he  has  the 
right  to  own  property,  and  he  will  continue  to 
look  upon  the  possession  of  a  home  and  of 
other  things  whereby  an  independent  existence 
for  himself  and  his  wife  and  children  is  secured, 
as  among  the  chief  boons  of  life.  The  owner 
of  the  poorest  cabin  would  not  barter  it  for  the 
promises  of  the  Socialist  paradise.  The  pas- 
sion for  independence,  for  liberty,  which,  in- 
born in  our  portion,  at  least,  of  the  Aryan  race, 
has  been  strengthened  and  intensified  by  cen- 
turies of  heroic  struggles,  makes  us  averse  to 
social  schemes  which,  if  practical  at  all,  can 
succeed  only  by  controlling  and  regulating  all 
the  affairs  of  life,  by  turning  the  whole  nation 
into  an  industrial  army,  where  each  one  is  under 
orders  to  keep  the  place  and  do  the  duties  as- 
signed him.  There  is  nothing  we  so  much  dis- 
like as  interference  —  we  who  think  it  better 
to  be  insulted  than  to  have  even  advice  prof- 
fered. In  America  we  know  our  politicians  too 
well  to  be  able  to  believe  that  captains  of  in- 
dustry, under  the  control  of  a  supreme  council, 
to  whom  power  vastly  greater  than  that  which 
politicians  and  bosses  have  ever  exercised  would 


20  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

necessarily  be  given  in  a  Socialist  government, 
could  safely  or  wisely  be  entrusted  with  the 
management  of  all  our  nearest  and  dearest 
concerns. 

If,  indeed,  the  root-principle  of  the  New 
Socialism,  as  set  forth  by  Marx,  and  before 
him  by  Ricardo,  —  that  labor  is  the  sole  source 
of  value,  and  that  therefore  capital  is  robbery, 
—  were  true,  it  would  certainly  be  a  powerful 
argument  against  the  existing  economic  order, 
and  would  drive  honest  men  to  look  with  ap- 
proval upon  projects  to  substitute  in  its  place 
some  method  of  production  and  distribution 
which  would  not  be  in  open  conflict  with  the 
current  ideas  of  morality.  Neither  religion  nor 
humanity  permits  us  to  acquiesce  in  a  system 
of  organized  plunder,  and  if  this  is  what  com- 
petitive capitalism  is,  the  transformation  of 
society,  by  revolution  if  need  be,  is  an  end  for 
which  all  good  men  might  well  labor.  If  we 
assume,  with  the  school  of  Ricardo,  that  all 
wealth,  all  exchange  value,  is  the  result  exclu- 
sively of  labor,  then  to  the  laborers  all  wealth 
rightfully  belongs,  and  capitalists  have  acquired 
what  they  possess  by  the  spoliation  of  the  true 
owners;  and  the  collectivism  of  Marx,  who 
proposes  to  turn  all  land  and  capital  over  to  the 
State,  which  undertakes  to  pay  every  one  the 
full  worth  of  his  work,  is  a  logical  development. 


SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR.  21 


Political  economists,  however,  now  generally 
agree  in  holding  that  the  theory  of  Ricardo, 
which  makes  labor  the  only  source  of  value,  is 
untenable;  for  capital,  which  is  required  for 
production,  must  be  accepted  as  a  factor  in  de- 
termining values,  and  its  owner  therefore  is 
entitled  to  a  fair  reward  for  the  service  his 
capital  renders.  It  may  be  said  that  capital 
itself  is  the  result  of  labor,  but  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  it  is  also  the  result  of  abstinence 
from  consumption.  While  one  man  consumes 
the  equivalent  of  his  entire  work,  another  con- 
sumes but  part,  and  thus  gradually  accumulates 
a  capital,  which  he  invests  in  some  machine, 
for  instance,  and  thereby  acquires  a  right  to 
whatever  value  the  machine  may  add  to  manu- 
factured products.  His  machine  has  become 
his  fellow-laborer,  and  if  large  and  perfect 
enough,  will  do  the  work  of  many  men.  What 
right  can  the  State  have  to  take  from  him  this 
labor-saving  instrument,  which  he  has  invented 
or  paid  for  with  money  honestly  earned? 

The  fallacy  of  the  Socialist  assumption  lies  in 
attributing  to  labor  a  value  of  its  own,  inde- 
pendently of  the  worth  of  its  product.  The 
labor  spent  in  doing  useless  things  has  no  value ; 
at  least,  no  social  value.  He  who  makes  what 
nobody  wants  has  his  labor  for  his  pains.  The 
question  is  not  what  amount  of  labor  an  object 


22  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

has  cost,  but  what  service  can  it  render.  A 
man  may  devote  years  to  learning  to  walk  the 
tight-rope,  but  if  I  do  not  care  for  such  attain- 
ments and  exhibitions,  I  will  not  pay  to  see 
him  perform.  Values,  then,  cannot  be  esti- 
mated in  terms  of  labor,  which  is  nevertheless 
the  task  the  Socialists  have  set  themselves. 
How  shall  we  determine  the  worth  of  the  labor 
expended  in  perfecting  a  plan  such  as  that  which 
led  Columbus  to  discover  America?  What  is 
the  worth  of  Newton's  labor  in  evolving  the 
theory  of  gravitation,  of  Shakspere's  in  writing 
"  Hamlet/'  of  Wagner's  in  composing  "  Parsi- 
fal," of  Gutenberg's  in  making  his  type,  or  of 
Watt's  in  building  his  steam-engine?  Without 
the  genius  of  inventors  and  discoverers,  without 
the  foresight  and  enterprise  of  investors  and 
capitalists,  there  would  be  little  for  laborers  to 
do,  and  society  would  drift  into  general  poverty. 
Far,  then,  from  being  the  sole  source  of  value, 
labor,  to  have  worth,  must  be  provided  with  the 
raw  materials  and  forces  of  nature;  must  be 
stimulated  and  directed  by  intelligence,  and  must 
produce  things  which  human  beings  want ;  and 
capital,  which  is  not  so  much  the  result  of  labor 
as  of  abstinence  from  consumption,  which  leaves 
a  surplus  of  the  labor  product  to  be  invested  in 
profit-bearing  enterprises,  necessarily  shares  also 
in  the  determination  of  values.  The  present 


SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR.  2$ 

economical  system,  then,  is  not,  as  Socialists 
affirm,  organized  injustice,  though  it  must  be 
admitted  that  it  often  leads  to  wrongs  which 
cripple  the  lives  of  multitudes,  and  produce  an 
incalculable  amount  of  physical  and  moral  evil. 
Indeed,  the  present  inequalities  in  the  distri- 
bution of  wealth  affect  the  moral  sense  so 
painfully  that  we  cannot  look  upon  them  as 
irremovable.  We  may  not,  however,  trample 
on  rights  to  secure  greater  distributive  justice, 
or  approve  of  schemes  which  if  they  promise 
a  greater  abundance  of  material  things  to  the 
poor,  would  lead  to  a  general  enfeeblement 
and  lowering  of  human  life.  In  a  Socialist 
State,  in  which  the  universal  ideal  is  that  of 
physical  well-being  and  comfort,  the  sublimer 
moods  which  make  saints,  heroes,  and  men  of 
genius  possible  would  no  longer  be  called  forth. 
If  all  should  receive  the  same  reward,  whatever 
their  labor,  spontaneity  would  come  to  an  end 
and  progress  cease,  and  such  an  equality  would 
finally  come  to  be  a  universal  equality  in  indo- 
lence, poverty,  and  low  thinking;  while  from 
an  ethical  point  of  view,  it  would  seem  to  be 
unjust  that  the  same  reward  should  be  given 
to  every  kind  of  labor. 

If  different  rewards  are  given  for  different 
kinds  of  work,  the  practical  difficulties  in  deter- 
mining the  social  value  of  the  different  kinds 


24  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

of  labor  appear  to  be  insuperable,  especially 
when  we  consider  that  in  the  Socialist  State 
there  are  to  be  no  special  payments,  no  money 
to  serve  as  a  universal  standard  of  value.  What 
shall  be  the  basis  of  comparison  for  fixing  the 
relative  value  of  the  work  of  a  carpenter,  a 
nurse-maid,  a  schoolmaster,  and  a  minister  of 
religion?  If  it  be  said  that  each  shall  receive 
according  to  the  amount  and  social  utility  of  his 
or  her  productive  labor,  how  is  this  rule  to  be 
applied?  Every  product  is  the  result  of  the 
operation  of  many  forces,  natural,  mechanical, 
and  human,  and  to  decide  what  part  of  the  value 
is  due  to  the  labor  of  any  special  workman  is 
extremely  difficult,  if  not  impossible.  If  we 
accept  the  formula,  "  To  each  in  proportion  to 
the  number  of  hours  of  his  work,"  which  is  said 
to  be  in  the  strictest  sense  the  theoretical  basis 
of  Socialism,  then  skilled  and  unskilled  labor 
will  be  paid  alike ;  and  since  the  acquirement  of 
skill  is  the  result  of  long  and  painful  processes, 
who  would  take  infinite  pains  when  by  so  doing 
he  would  gain  nothing?  And  how  shall  we 
apply  this  time-measure  to  agricultural  labor, 
to  domestic  service,  to  woman's  work  in  the 
family,  where  she  has  at  once  the  offices  of 
wife,  mother,  nurse,  and  housekeeper?  If 
skilled  labor  receives  a  greater  reward  than 
the  unskilled  the  principle  of  equality  is  aban- 


SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR.  2$ 

doned,  while  the  relative  values  of  the  two  kinds 
of  labor  must  be  arbitrarily  assumed. 

Not  only,  then,  is  the  Socialist  theory  of  the 
source  of  value  unsatisfactory,  but  the  methods 
by  which  it  is  proposed  to  bring  about  a  more 
equal  distribution  of  wealth  are  either  imprac- 
ticable or,  if  applied,  would  lead  to  greater  evils 
than  those  from  which  we  actually  suffer. 
There  would,  indeed,  have  to  be  a  radical  change 
in  man's  moral  nature  before  it  would  be  safe 
to  entrust  to  any  body  of  men  such  power  as 
the  managers  of  the  Socialist  State  would  in- 
evitably acquire.  It  is  with  power  as  with 
money  —  those  who  love  it  never  have  enough ; 
and  in  fact  if  the  whole  economic  management 
of  society,  together  with  the  education  of  the 
young,  were  turned  over  to  a  special  governing 
and  directing  class,  its  power  wrould  necessarily 
have  to  be  almost  unlimited.  The  whole  people 
would  be  marshalled  like  an  army,  and  unques- 
tioning obedience  would  be  demanded  and  en- 
forced. The  right  of  the  people  to  elect  their 
officers  gives  no  assurance  that  their  favorites 
will  be  worthy  or  capable.  What  universal  suf- 
frage does  to  bring  the  best  and  the  wisest  into 
power  is  now  well  known.  The  policy  and  the 
candidates  of  the  people  are  the  policy  and  the 
candidates  of  wire-pullers  and  bosses.  They 
who  should  once  get  hold  of  the  vast  and  com- 


26  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

plex  machinery  by  which  it  is  proposed  to  gov- 
ern the  Socialist  State  would  most  probably 
remain  in  power;  and  when  we  reflect  that  all 
the  printing-presses  of  the  country  would  be 
under  their  control,  and  that  there  would  be  no 
reason  for  the  existence  of  political  parties,  it 
is  difficult  to  see  how  they  could  be  driven  from 
office.  The  selfishness  which,  under  the  regime 
of  competitive  capitalism,  makes  so  many  em- 
ployers of  labor  heartless  and  tyrannical,  would 
assert  itself  also  in  the  new  order ;  for  a  change 
of  government  is  like  a  change  of  clothes,  it 
leaves  the  man  what  he  was.  It  is  incredible 
that  the  perversity  of  human  passion  may  be 
corrected  by  mechanical  appliances.  Its  source 
lies  within,  where  lie  also  the  aids  to  noble  life ; 
and  until  there  is  a  universal  change  of  heart,  a 
social  theory  which  assumes  that  every  man 
loves  all  men  as  much  as  he  loves  himself  is 
Utopian.  Observant  minds  belonging  to  differ- 
ent schools  of  thought  agree  in  holding  that 
in  the  modern  world  egotism  is  more  intense 
than  it  was  in  the  middle  ages,  at  least  so  far  as 
there  is  question  of  the  love  of  money,  which 
now  is  the  form  all  our  selfish  passions  naturally 
take;  for  money  means  power,  it  means  self- 
indulgence,  it  means  the  satisfaction  of  vanity, 
it  means  honor  and  place.  Mere  intellectual 
training  is  powerless  to  correct  this  vice  or  to 


SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR.  2/ 

bring  about  any  great  moral  improvement.  It 
tends  to  change  the  form  of  vice  rather  than  to 
make  us  virtuous ;  or,  if  we  should  take  a  more 
hopeful  view  of  what  secular  education  is  able 
to  do,  the  time  is  certainly  distant  when  the 
masses  can  be  called  educated,  in  any  real  sense 
of  the  word. 

Though  we  cannot  accept  the  fundamental 
principles  of  Socialism  or  Collectivism  as  true, 
and  though  we  are  persuaded  that  society  cannot 
successfully  be  established  upon  them  as  a  basis, 
there  are  none  the  less  bonds  of  sympathy  be- 
tween us  and  the  Socialists.  The  desire,  which 
in  the  case  of  many  of  them  is  doubtless  earnest 
and  sincere,  to  come  to  the  relief  of  the  poor,  to 
find  some  means  by  which  their  lot  may  be  made 
less  miserable,  springs  from  a  divine  impulse. 
It  is  Christian  and  human;  and  the  anti-reli- 
gious spirit  of  modern  Socialism  comes  from  an 
unphilosophic  and  unhistoric  view  of  the  forces 
which  create  civilization  and  give  promise  of  a 
better  future.  Atheism  and  materialism  fatally 
strengthen  and  intensify  man's  selfish  passions, 
by  merging  life's  whole  significance  and  worth 
into  the  present  transitory  existence.  If  there 
is  no  order  of  absolute  truth  and  right,  no  future 
for  the  individual,  then  pleasure  is  the  chief 
good,  and  both  instinct  and  reason  impel  to 
indulgence  and  to  the  overthrow  of  society,  if 


28  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

society  makes  the  enjoyment  of  life  impossible. 
Hence  the  socialism  of  materialists  and  atheists 
logically  leads  to  anarchy.  Nothing  could  be 
more  sad  than  that  the  multitude  should  be 
driven  to  look  for  deliverance  from  their  wrongs 
and  sorrows  to  leaders  who  deny  God,  and 
man's  kinship  with  the  infinitely  true  and  per- 
fect One;  who  tell  them  that  there  is  no  living 
heavenly  Father,  but  only  an  unconscious  Earth- 
Mother,  on  whose  senseless  body  Life  and  Death 
play  their  horrid  farce.  The  grasping  avarice 
and  heartless  methods  of  employers  and  capital- 
ists, who  generally  profess  to  be  Christians,  are 
arguments  against  religion  which  the  preachers 
of  atheism  find  effective  in  addressing  the  vic- 
tims of  our  present  economic  system ;  while  the 
decay  of  faith  has  greatly  diminished  the  per- 
suasive force  of  appeals  in  favor  of  resigna- 
tion and  submission.  Those  who  lose  faith 
and  hope  and  love,  lose  patience  too;  and  it  is 
futile  to  preach  the  sacredness  of  wealth  to  the 
poor  when  their  miserable  lives  are  the  sad 
witnesses  to  the  immorality  of  the  means  by 
which  it  is  acquired. 

Who  can  read  the  history  of  rack-renting  in 
Ireland,  or  the  story  of  the  Sweating  System  in 
the  "  Bitter  Cry  of  Outcast  London/'  with- 
out feeling  that  a  social  order  which  makes 
such  things  possible  ought  to  be  changed  or 
destroyed  ? 


SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR.  29 

Who  can  consider  the  mental,  moral,  and 
physical  state  of  certain  classes  of  emigrants 
who  land  upon  our  shores  by  the  thousand,  with- 
out asking  ourselves  whether  the  countries  from 
which  these  people  come  are  civilized  and  Chris- 
tian? Has  the  passion  for  humanity  which 
Christ  came  to  inspire,  and  which  was  a  living 
principle  in  his  early  followers,  died  in  Chris- 
tian Europe  ?  There  the  very  poor  certainly  are 
excluded  from  our  spiritual  and  material  inheri- 
tance, and  it  would  seem  that  the  standing  ar- 
mies which  are  kept  up  by  the  various  powers 
are  maintained  rather  for  the  purpose  of  holding 
the  impoverished  masses  in  subjection  than  for 
defence  against  foreign  aggression.  It  is  as 
though  the  ruling  classes  in  Europe  had  entered 
into  a  conspiracy  to  foment  national  jealousy 
and  hatred,  that  they  may  have  a  pretext  for 
keeping  intact  their  military  organizations, 
which,  while  they  overawe  the  people,  help  to 
reduce  them  to  still  greater  poverty  and  wretch- 
edness. There  Socialism  may  have  a  meaning, 
and  since  there  are  never  wanting  with  us  people 
who  think  it  the  proper  thing  to  take  whatever 
infection  may  prevail  in  Europe,  it  was  inevi- 
table that  certain  dilettants  and  idiosyncratics 
should  seek  to  persuade  us  that  America  too 
ought  to  have  its  Socialism.  We  began,  how- 
ever, as  the  most  completely  individualist  people 


30  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

of  which  history  makes  record,  and  our  experi- 
ence has  not  tended  to  weaken  our  faith  in  the 
power  of  freedom,  intelligence,  and  industry  to 
solve  the  great  social  problems.  Should  our 
plutocrats,  instead  of  making  themselves  public 
benefactors,  become  public  malefactors,  a  mod- 
ification in  the  laws  of  inheritance,  together 
with  other  legal  measures  which  would  readily 
suggest  themselves,  would  be  sufficient  to  abate 
the  nuisance.  For  the  rest,  we  are  convinced 
that  the  great  aim  should  be  not  to  provide 
for  all  men,  but  to  train  and  educate  all  men 
to  take  care  of  themselves.  The  tendency  of 
good  government  is  to  make  government  less 
necessary,  and  the  influence  of  the  religion  of 
Christ  not  only  creates  purer  morals  and  sym- 
pathies, but  it  also  mitigates  the  conflict  between 
the  Church  and  the  world. 

As  men  become  more  enlightened  and  human, 
they  perceive  that  the  aims  of  the  best  civil 
government  are  not  really  distinct  from  those 
of  true  religion.  Man's  salvation  here  and 
hereafter  is  the  end  for  which  all  society  exists, 
and  hence  it  is  the  duty  both  of  the  Church  and 
the  State  to  labor  for  freedom,  knowledge,  and 
righteousness;  in  other  words,  for  humanity. 
The  nineteen  centuries  which  have  passed  since 
Christ  was  born  have  put  new  forces  into  our 
hands,  which,  if  we  but  use  them  with  wisdom 


SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR.  31 

and  in  the  spirit  of  Christian  love,  may  teach 
that  the  Saviour  came  not  to  redeem  the  indi- 
vidual alone,  but  to  transform  society.  We 
have  at  our  disposal  the  vast  treasure  of  science, 
which  is  ever  increasing,  and  which,  if  we  but 
have  understanding  and  a  heart,  may  be  made 
to  bless  alike  the  rich  and  the  poor  with  greater 
knowledge  of  the  causes  of  physical  evil,  of 
hygienic  and  sanitary  laws,  which  shall  become 
more  and  more  able  to  forestall  disease.  We 
shall  make  education  universal,  but  we  shall 
educate  with  a  view  to  health  of  body  and  soul 
quite  as  much,  at  least,  as  with  a  view  to  sharpen 
the  mental  faculties.  We  shall  gradually  come 
to  understand  that  there  is  no  conflict  between 
religion  and  science,  but  that  both  are  mani- 
festations of  God's  wisdom  and  love,  meant  to 
console,  strengthen,  and  save  man.  The  min- 
ister of  religion  will  love  knowledge  and  the 
man  of  science  will  be  reverent  and  devout. 
When  cooperation  becomes  universal  not  among 
laborers  alone,  but  when  the  men  of  wealth 
and  the  men  of  toil,  the  men  of  religion  and 
the  men  of  science,  the  spiritual  guides  and 
the  temporal  rulers,  all  unite  for  the  common 
good  of  the  whole  people,  a  new  era  will  dawn. 
All  will  then  recognize  that  intelligence  and 
morality  are  the  basis  of  human  life;  and  that 
as  right  intelligence  leads  to  faith  in  God,  so  is 


32  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

that  faith  the  fountain-head  of  the  generous  and 
fervid  moods  which  make  righteousness  pre- 
vail. We  shall  understand  more  thoroughly 
that  the  causes  of  vice  and  crime  are  the  chief 
causes  also  of  poverty  and  all  other  social  evils. 

And  while  this  truer  view  will  weaken  con- 
fidence in  the  mechanical  appliances  and  patent 
remedies  of  reformers  and  empirics,  it  will 
confirm  our  faith  in  the  efficacy  of  pure  religion, 
of  right  education,  and  of  whatever  else  nour- 
ishes and  strengthens  the  faculties  within. 

Then  shall  a  more  perfect  society  grow 
round  us  —  a  society  complex  and  various,  yet 
free  and  orderly,  rich  in  art,  vocal  in  literature, 
strong  in  sympathy,  victorious  through  the 
power  of  holiness  and  love. 


II. 

THE  BASIS  OF  POPULAR   GOVERNMENT. 

T7ENELON  spoke  from  his  generous  heart 
•*•  when  he  said,  "  I  love  my  family  more 
than  myself,  my  country  more  than  my  family, 
and  the  whole  world  more  than  my  country." 
Unfortunately,  the  converse  of  this  is  true  of 
men  in  general,  who  love  themselves  first,  their 
families  next,  then  their  country,  and  the  whole 
world  hardly  at  all.  Hence  the  inefficacy  of 
arguments  intended  to  show  that  abuses  in 
which  an  age  takes  delight  will  bring  harm  to 
posterity.  Those  who  prefer  the  lower  to  the 
higher  self  will  make  no  sacrifices  for  the  good 
of  their  descendants,  as  one  who  is  indifferent 
to  the  living  will  surely  be  unmindful  of  the 
dead  and  the  unborn.  •  We  care  nothing  for 
ancestors  who  are  a  few  degrees  removed  from 
us,  unless  their  lives  furnish  food  to  our  vanity, 
and  it  is  not  probable  that  any  man  is  made 
unhappy  by  pondering  on  the  destiny  that 
may  await  his  great-grandchildren.  Declaimers 
against  the  evils  of  the  age,  who  predict  the 
3 


34  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

not  distant  downfall  of  the  State  or  of  civili- 
zation, alarm  no  one,  because  few  have  faith  in 
such  forebodings,  and  fewer  still  care  to  trouble 
themselves  about  the  condition  of  mankind  a 
hundred  years  hence.  The  masses  of  Euro- 
peans and  Americans  are  little  concerned  for 
the  welfare  of  the  populations  of  Africa  and 
eastern  Asia;  they  are  too  far  away.  And 
time  separates  even  more  than  space. 

Here  in  America,  to  within  a  quite  recent 
date,  we  have  been  so  wholly  under  the  influ- 
ence of  unreasoning  optimism  and  youthful 
self-complacency,  that  prophets  of  evil  have 
appeared  to  us  to  be  simply  men  of  unsound 
mind.  As  a  people  we  have  been,  and  probably 
still  are,  believers  in  the  fundamental  error  that 
denies  the  original  taint  in  man's  nature;  and 
hence  we  are  persuaded  that,  in  a  society  like 
ours,  where  the  restraints,  oppressions,  and  in- 
justices of  past  ages  have  ceased  to  exist,  the 
tendency  to  higher  modes  of  thought  and  con- 
duct, to  purer  and  worthier  life,  is  as  irresistible 
as  the  laws  of  nature.  The  enthusiasm  with 
which  men  hailed  the  advent  of  the  rule  of  the 
people,  and  the  promise  of  boundless  good  to 
the  race  with  which  the  new  order  of  things 
was  ushered  in,  together  with  a  knowledge  of 
the  terrible  and  indescribable  evils  that  unjust 
laws  and  tyrannical  governments  have  brought 


THE  BASIS  OF  POPULAR   GOVERNMENT.     35 

upon  mankind,  were  sufficient  to  blind  them  to 
the  common  facts  of  personal  experience,  and 
to  hide  from  philosophers  a  truth  known  to 
every  mother  and  every  nurse,  that  man  is  born 
not  only  weak  and  ignorant,  but  with  such  a 
tendency  to  what  is  vicious  that  each  genera- 
tion of  children,  if  left  to  the  impulse  of  their 
will,  would  inevitably  relapse  into  barbarism. 

The  bent  of  human  nature  is  toward  what 
is  beneath,  and  the  natural  course  of  society 
is  downward.  If  we  consider  the  history  of 
our  race,  we  find  emergence  from  barbarism 
to  be  the  fortunate  lot  of  exceptional  people, 
who  by  some  divine  impulse  are  borne  upward, 
and,  having  reached  a  certain  height  of  civili- 
zation, hasten  to  descend,  not,  indeed,  along 
the  rugged  paths  of  heroic  daring  and  self- 
denial  by  which  they  mounted  the  summit,  but 
in  the  open  and  easy  way  of  sensual  delights. 
Among  the  most  privileged  nations,  only  the 
smallest  number  attain  to  excellence,  and  their 
high  endowments,  whether  moral  or  intellec- 
tual, depend  upon  unceasing  effort.  The  great 
body  of  their  fellow-countrymen  are  held  to  be 
civilized  on  account  of  their  association  with 
these  better  specimens  of  the  race,  just  as  a 
vulgar  man  is  called  noble  because  he  descends 
from  ancestors  who  are  believed  to  have  been 
really  so.  Few  men  love  the  best,  or  seek  the 


36  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

highest,  or  strive  to  shape  their  lives  upon  the 
model  of  exalted  ideals;  and  the  truly  excel- 
lent, whether  in  conduct,  literature,  or  art,  is 
never  popular.  The  crowd  neither  follow  in 
the  footsteps  of  the  noblest  characters,  nor  read 
the  best  books,  nor  love  the  master-works  of 
genius.  It  may,  indeed,  be  said  to  be  a  law  of 
human  nature  that  attraction  from  below  is 
stronger  than  attraction  from  above.  The  mul- 
titude live  in  the  senses,  not  in  the  soul;  and 
the  life  of  the  senses  is  contact  with  material 
objects.  Hence  the  fatal  tendency  to  superficial 
views  of  life  and  to  low  notions  of  conduct. 
How  long  and  patiently  must  not  a  man  labor 
to  bring  his  natural  endowments  to  some  kind 
of  perfection?  And  the  moment  he  ceases  to 
toil  marks  the  beginning  of  degeneracy.  But 
this  tireless  struggle  is  hard  to  weak  nature, 
and  the  multitudes  yield  to  the  current,  and 
are  carried  farther  and  farther  away  from  the 
heights  their  young  eyes  looked  up  to  with 
hope,  all  aglow  with  the  light  of  ideal  worlds. 
The  same  law  prevails  in  families.  But  very 
few  rise  to  eminence,  and  they,  having  pro- 
duced two  or  three  men  of  mark,  break  up  and 
are  lost  in  obscurity. 

It  is  difficult  to  understand  why  we  should 
imagine  that  there  is  in  human  nature  a  prin- 
ciple of  indefinite  progress?  There  is,  indeed, 


THE  BASIS  OF  POPULAR   GOVERNMENT.     37 

in  the  world  to-day  more  knowledge  than  there 
has  ever  been,  more  wealth,  more  comfort,  more 
liberty;  but,  apart  from  the  fact  that  all  this  is 
in  great  measure  attributable  to  the  influence  of 
Christianity,  which  was  accepted  as  a  super- 
natural faith,  supplying  supernatural  motives 
and  helps,  the  essential  quality  of  human  life 
lies  elsewhere  than  in  knowledge,  wealth,  com- 
fort, and  liberty.  Men  and  nations  fail,  not  for 
lack  of  these,  but  for  lack  of  moral  strength. 
Conduct,  to  use  a  current  phrase,  is  three- 
fourths  or  four-fifths  of  human  life;  and  man 
is  to  such  an  extent  a  moral  being  that  failure 
in  conduct  is  essential,  hopeless  failure.  The 
sense  of  life,  of  its  goodness,  its  joyousness,  its 
inestimable  worth,  springs  from  right-doing, 
not  from  fine  thinking,  or  the  enjoyment  of 
political  freedom,  or  the  possession  of  wealth. 
Pure  hearts  are  glad,  and  they  who  tread  the 
paths  of  duty  find  God's  world  sweet.  This  is 
not  a  theory,  but  a  truth  that  all  men  may 
verify  by  actual  experiment,  and  to  it  the  un- 
varying testimony  of  the  past  bears  witness. 
That  moral  life  is  joy,  peace,  gladness,  content- 
ment, fullness  of  life,  is  the  teaching  of  all  the 
greatest  thinkers  of  the  world;  and  it  is  also 
the  actual  experience  of  every  human  being 
who  walks  obedient  to  the  voice  of  God's  stern 
daughter,  Duty.  This  is  not  to  say  that  right- 


38  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

doing  necessarily  makes  people  happy,  but  that 
it  gives  them  a  deeper  sense  of  the  value  of  life 
and  of  its  sacredness,  a  better  insight  into  the 
goodness  of  all  things,  a  knowledge  that  evil 
is  accidental,  and  in  no  way  able  to  deprive 
man  of  the  blessedness  that  comes  of  being  in 
conscious  harmony  with  the  eternal  laws  of 
God's  universe.  To  be  morally  right  is  to  be 
absolutely  right,  because  the  infinite  truth  of 
what  is,  is  more  nearly  revealed  to  the  con- 
science than  to  the  intellect;  and  the  more 
closely  we  conform  to  the  law  within,  the  more 
God-like  does  the  whole  world  external  to 
ourselves  grow  to  be.  In  this  way  moral  ex- 
cellence, awakening  the  deep  and  boundless 
harmonies  that  sleep  within  the  soul,  brings  us 
near  to  the  heart  of  love  and  creates  faith  in 
immortal  life.  When  character  is  the  result  of 
conformity  with  eternal  laws,  we  feel  that  this 
union  is  everlastingly  true,  good,  and  fair;  and 
hence  that  our  real  self  belongs  to  an  order 
of  things  that  is  imperishable.  Therefore  the 
good  are  strong,  and  so,  happy,  since  weak- 
ness is  misery. 

Just  as  right-doing  leads  to  completeness  of 
life  and  to  belief  in  life  everlasting,  so  wrong- 
doing begets  a  dis-esteem  of  life  and  unbelief 
in  man's  God-like  destiny.  "  Let  us  eat  and 
drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die/'  are  the  words  of 


THE  BASIS  OF  POPULAR   GOVERNMENT.     39 

those  who  fail  in  conduct.  The  more  we  live 
in  the  senses,  the  less  becomes  our  faith  in  the 
value  and  duration  of  life.  Hence  the  reckless- 
ness of  those  who  have  thrown  aside  moral  re- 
straint, and  the  fatal  facility  with  which  they 
take  their  own  and  others'  lives.  Thought,  to 
be  true  and  healthful,  must  complete  itself  in 
act.  It  is  not,  therefore,  its  own  end,  but  aims 
at  something  beyond.  In  the  same  way  faith, 
hope,  and  love  tend  to  action,  to  morality,  to 
righteousness ;  and  thus  from  all  sides  the  truth 
is  borne  in  upon  us  that  the  test  of  human  worth 
is  to  be  found  in  character,  and  not  in  a  culti- 
vated mind,  or  a  brilliant  imagination,  or  in 
beauty  of  body,  and  much  less,  of  course,  in 
things  that  are  purely  material,  as  money  and 
machinery.  Progress,  then,  is  not  possible 
where  there  is  moral  decadence,  since  conduct 
is  three-fourths  of  life,  and  character  the  real 
test  of  man's  worth.  The  literary  excellence 
and  refined  civilization  of  the  age  of  Augustus 
and  of  the  age  of  Louis  XIV.  were  not  only 
wholly  powerless  to  arrest  the  decay  of  Roman 
and  French  society,  but  served  rather  to  hasten 
its  dissolution;  and  history  testifies  to  the  truth 
that  the  possession  of  wealth  destroys  the  vir- 
tues by  which  it  is  created. 

If  we  turn  to  our  own  country,  and  to  what, 
unfortunately,  we  must  still  call  an  experiment, 


4O  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

to  determine  whether  the  best  possible  kind  of 
government  may  become  an  enduring  fact,  we 
cannot  fail  to  perceive  that,  to  be  able  to  form 
an  enlightened  opinion  as  to  the  success  or  fail- 
ure of  this  noblest  effort  at  self-government 
ever  made  by  mankind,  the  truth  that  I  have 
here  sought  to  develop  must  be  borne  in  mind. 
Human  worth  is  moral  worth;  man's  proper 
measure  is  character;  conduct  is  three- fourths 
of  life ;  right-doing  brings  the  deepest  and  most 
lasting  content  and  gladness  to  the  heart  of 
man,  and  thus  creates  a  sense  of  completeness 
and  harmony  that  nothing  else  can  give. 
Righteousness  is  strength.  As  the  physical 
forces  of  the  boundless  universe  work  together 
in  every  drop  of  water  to  give  and  maintain 
its  form  and  nature,  so  the  infinite  power  that 
makes  goodness  the  best,  cooperates  with  every 
man  who  obeys  conscience,  to  uphold  and  con- 
firm his  heart.  Goodness  of  life  tends  to  length 
of  days,  to  health,  to  success.  Man  lives  by 
faith,  hope,  and  love;  and  fidelity  to  conscience 
keeps  him  close  to  the  clear-flowing  fountain- 
head  of  faith,  hope,  and  love.  To  think  finely 
is  well;  to  dream  nobly  is  also  good;  and  to 
look  with  a  glad  heart  upon  the  beauties  of  the 
universe  gives  delight;  but  not  in  doing  any 
of  these  things,  but  in  doing  right,  lies  the 
worth  and  goodness  of  life.  And  this  great 


THE  BASIS  OF  POPULAR   GOVERNMENT.     41 

principle  affects  families  and  nations  as  it  af- 
fects individuals.  Conduct  leads  a  whole  people 
along  the  rugged  and  difficult  ascent  of  prog- 
ress; and,  without  it,  neither  knowledge,  nor 
wealth,  nor  numbers,  nor  machinery,  nor  fer- 
tile soil,  nor  healthful  climate,  nor  all  these 
together,  with  whatever  else  there  may  be  that 
is  good  and  helpful,  can  save  them  from  deca- 
dence and  ruin.  Whether  alone  or  one  of  a 
multitude,  man  fails  not  for  lack  of  anything 
else  than  virtue. 

That  a  democratic  form  of  government  ought 
to  be  the  best,  the  proverb,  "  If  you  wish  a  thing 
done,  do  it  yourself,"  would  seem  sufficiently  to 
prove.  Again :  Since  the  end  of  government  is 
to  promote  the  welfare  of  all  the  governed,  and 
since  each  man  is  more  than  any  one  else  inter- 
ested in  his  own  behalf,  and  since  interest  in  a 
subject  or  a  cause  awakens  attention  and  be- 
gets intelligence  in  matters  therewith  connected, 
it  would  seem  to  follow  that  to  give  to  all  men 
a  due  degree  of  influence  in  the  government  is 
the  surest  way  to  promote  the  welfare  of  all. 
And  this  conclusion  gains  weight  when  we  re- 
flect that  whoever  hopes  more  from  his  own 
industry  and  merit  than  from  fortune  and  favor 
is  a  natural  republican.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  seems  to  be  no  doubt  that  the  government 
of  the  best  men  is  really  the  best  government; 


42  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

and,  since  this  is  so,  that  a  democratic  govern- 
ment, where  the  people  are  corrupt,  is  neces- 
sarily a  bad  government,  because  the  vicious 
will  not  only  not  elect  the  best,  who  will  not 
stoop  to  their  level,  but,  by  virtue  of  the  law  of 
affinity,  will  choose  the  baser  sort  of  men.  It 
was  this  kind  of  democracy  that  repelled  Landor, 
—  "  Because,"  said  he,  "  I  have  always  found 
it  more  jealous  of  merit,  more  suspicious  of 
wisdom,  more  proud  of  riding  on  great  minds, 
more  pleased  at  raising  up  little  ones  above 
them,  more  fond  of  loud  talking,  more  impa- 
tient of  calm  reasoning,  more  unsteady,  more 
ungrateful,  and  more  ferocious;  above  all,  be- 
cause it  leads  to  despotism  through  f raudulence, 
intemperance,  and  corruption/' 

As  the  liberty  of  criminals  means  license,  so 
the  freedom  of  the  immoral  means  corruption. 
Declaimers  are  fond  of  affirming  that  man  nat- 
urally loves  liberty,  when  the  truth  is,  he  only 
naturally  hates  restraint.  Liberty  is  obedience 
to  law;  and  is  it  not  absurd  to  assert  that  men 
are  naturally  obedient  to  law,  when  religion, 
education,  civil  authority,  criminal  codes,  and 
other  means  have  to  be  continually  employed 
to  enforce  respect  for  authority?  Do  savages, 
barbarians,  and  children  love  the  moral  re- 
straint without  which  it  is  not  possible  even  to 
think  of  liberty?  Have  not  men  in  all  ages 


THE  BASIS  OF  POPULAR   GOVERNMENT.     43 

called  liberty  the  opportunity  to  seek  their  own 
interests  and  gratify  their  passions  by  inflicting 
wrongs  upon  their  fellow-beings?  All  virtue  is 
rare,  but  love  of  liberty  is  a  virtue,  the  flower 
and  fruit  of  a  life-long  devotion  to  rectitude,  to 
unselfish  purposes  and  aims  as  large  as  the  love 
of  Christ.  Let  us  not  imagine,  then,  that  a  free 
government  such  as  ours  rests  upon  the  natural 
instincts  of  the  human  heart.  We  love  the 
highest  when  we  see  it,  but  the  low  cannot  see 
the  highest,  and  only  the  best  know  the  best. 
Our  great  good  fortune  lies  in  our  infinite 
wealth  of  opportunity.  Whoever  feels  within 
himself  force  of  mind  or  heart  or  body,  finds 
work  to  do  that  brings  reward;  and  as  he 
moves  forward,  avenues  open  out  at  every  step 
that  lead  or  promise  to  lead  to  much  that  men 
most  eagerly  desire.  Through  these  thousand 
channels  the  flood  of  energy  finds  outlets,  and 
catastrophes  are  avoided.  But  opportunities 
diminish  with  the  growth  of  population  and 
the  development  of  the  country;  and  with  the 
whole  world  rushing  in  upon  us,  we  shall  soon 
have  to  find  a  way  to  control  destructive  agen- 
cies which  our  physical  resources  and  sparse 
population  now  render  comparatively  harmless. 
We  must  prepare  to  meet  this  emergency.  We 
have  seventy-five  million  people;  our  wealth  is 
greater  than  that  of  any  other  nation;  our 


44  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

machines  are  the  most  perfect;  and  the  com- 
forts of  life  are  here  within  the  reach  of  larger 
multitudes  of  men  than  have  ever  enjoyed 
them.  All  this  has  come  like  the  leaves  in 
spring-time,  and  like  the  fruit  in  summer;  but 
numbers  do  not  constitute  excellence,  and  ma- 
chinery does  not  fashion  souls,  and  comforts 
do  not  nourish  heroes.  If  the  outcome  of  our 
civilization  is  simply  to  be  the  greatest  possible 
number  of  well-clad  and  well-fed  human  beings, 
there  is  little  need  of  giving  serious  thought  to 
such  a  lubberland  of  mediocrities;  and  we  may 
as  well  agree  with  Renan,  who  thinks  us  far- 
ther removed  from  true  social  ideals  than  any 
other  people,  or  with  Carlyle,  who  maintains 
that  the  stupendous  feat  we  have  hitherto  ac- 
complished is  to  bring  into  existence  in  an  in- 
credibly short  time  more  millions  of  bores  than 
have  ever  before  made  earth  dismal. 

To  develop  the  highest  man,  and,  if  it  may 
be,  multitudes  of  the  highest  men,  is  in  every 
way  more  desirable  than  to  dig  gold  or  build 
railways;  and  if  we  are  to  stand  in  the  van  of 
all  the  world,  we  must  have  other  proofs  to 
show  than  our  money,  our  corn,  our  numbers, 
and  our  machines.  "  The  end  of  all  political 
struggle/'  says  Emerson,  "  is  to  establish  mo- 
rality as  the  basis  of  all  legislation."  It  is  mani- 
fest that  our  politics  have  become  essentially 


THE  BASIS  OF  POPULAR   GOVERNMENT.     45 

immoral.  Neither  party  dares  to  touch  any 
question  that  is  higher  or  holier  than  that  of 
tariff  or  no  tariff,  looking  upon  a  wretched 
financial  problem  as  the  only  vital  interest  for 
a  people  who  lack  not  money,  but  virtue.  The 
eternal  principles  of  justice  and  morality  are 
ignored,  and  our  electoral  contests  have  degen- 
erated into  mere  struggles  for  office;  and  to 
suggest  that  conscience  ought  again  to  assert 
itself  in  American  politics  is  to  make  one's  self 
ridiculous.  And  all  the  while  the  evidences  of 
moral  decadence  stare  us  in  the  face.  There 
is  the  general  decay  of  faith  in  God  and  in 
the  worth  of  life  that  is  the  unfailing  mark 
of  weakening  character  and  sinking  morality. 
Nothing  is  longer  certain  for  us  but  what  we 
see  or  touch,  so  that  the  whole  ideal  world, 
which  is  our  only  true  world,  is  become  a 
dream ;  and  the  young  start  out  in  life  with  no 
higher  aims  than  to  get  money  or  office.  Noth- 
ing is  left  among  us  that  is  venerable,  or  great, 
or  divine.  We  look  upon  God's  universe  with 
the  spirit  of  irreverence  in  which  the  author  of 
"  Innocents  Abroad  "  beheld  the  shrines  of  re- 
ligion and  art  in  Europe  and  Asia.  Our  smart- 
ness renders  us  incapable  of  admiration,  of 
awe,  of  reverence.  We  know  what  the  stars 
are  made  of,  and  think  them  not  more  wonder- 
ful than  an  electric  light. 


46  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

The  press  of  our  great  cities  is  the 
chronicle  of  our  life.  What  does  it  record? 
Murders,  suicides,  robberies,  thefts,  adulteries, 
fornications,  divorces,  drunkenness,  gambling, 
incendiarism,  fraudulent  bankruptcies,  official 
peculations,  with  now  and  then  a  collision  of 
trains  and  destruction  of  life  and  property  by 
mobs.  This  fills  the  news  columns.  In  the 
editorials  we  meet  with  reckless  assertion,  crude 
generalization,  special  pleading,  ignorant  or  dis- 
honest statement  of  half-truths,  insincere  praise 
and  lying  abuse  of  public  men,  frivolous  treat- 
ment of  the  highest  and  holiest  subjects  —  all 
thrown  into  that  form  of  false  reasoning  and 
loose  style  which  is  natural  to  minds  that  have 
not  time  to  learn  anything  thoroughly.  And 
this  half -mental  and  half -bestial  brothel-and- 
grog  mixture,  brought  from  the  great  cities  by 
special  trains  to  every  household,  falls  like  a 
mildew  upon  the  mind  and  conscience  of  the 
people,  taking  from  them  all  relish  for  litera- 
ture,' all  belief  in  virtue,  all  reverence  for  God 
and  nature,  until  one  may  doubt  whether  we 
have  not  lost  the  power  of  intellectual  and 
moral  growth. 

We  have  no  one  institution  great  enough  to 
inspire  the  love  and  enthusiasm  that  are  the 
soul  of  national  unity.  Our  public  life  regards 
material  interests  alone;  our  theory  of  educa- 


THE  BASIS  OF  POPULAR   GOVERNMENT.     47 

tion  is  narrow  and  superficial,  aiming  chiefly  to 
develop  smartness,  the  least  desirable  quality 
of  mind,  and  more  sure  than  any  other  to  foster 
vulgarity ;  and  thus  we  have  no  ideal  to  elevate 
and  guide  us  or  fill  us  with  faith  in  our  des- 
tiny. In  the  meantime,  the  manners  of  Europe 
threaten  us,  and  we  are  permitting  the  rapid 
growth  of  social  customs  that  are  helpful 
enough  to  tyrants,  but  pernicious  in  a  demo- 
cratic republic.  Austere  manners  lead  to  polit- 
ical liberty  and  uphold  free  governments;  but 
a  people  given  over  to  sensual  delights,  to  fool- 
ish frolicking  and  dissipation,  love  license  more 
than  freedom,  and,  if  you  but  give  them  wine 
and  a  show,  care  not  what  master  rules  over 
them.  The  Puritans  of  New  England  had  the 
truest  instinct  of  political  liberty,  and  that 
instinct  made  them  serious,  earnest,  austere, 
averse  alike  to  childish  gayety  and  to  loose  con- 
duct. It  were  better  for  us,  if  our  liberty  is 
dear  to  us,  to  have  the  Puritan  Sabbath  than 
the  Pagan  Sunday  of  parts  of  Europe.  There 
must  be  brought  into  our  public  life  something 
to  appeal  to  minds  and  consciences  as  well  as 
to  interests;  for  it  is  the  disgrace  of  a  nation 
that  its  chief  concern  should  be  a  question  of 
money,  and  that  the  significance  of  political 
contests  should  lie  in  the  emoluments  of  office; 
and  while  this  state  of  things  continues,  the 


48  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

best  men  will  remain  aloof  from  the  struggle, 
and  leave  the  direction  of  public  affairs  in  the 
hands  of  the  baser  sort.  We  need  an  ideal  to 
which  all  noble  minds  and  generous  hearts  may 
rally,  and  this  ideal  here  in  America  at  the  pres- 
ent day  can  neither  be  intellectual  nor  religious  ; 
it  must  be  moral.  We  are  too  essentially  prac- 
tical to  be  deeply  interested  in  intellectual  truth, 
and  our  religious  divisions  are  so  various  and 
so  far-reaching  that  a  great  national  regenera- 
tion springing  from  a  common  faith  is  not  now 
possible;  but  there  is  still  left  in  the  mass  of 
the  people  a  deep  moral  earnestness,  which,  if 
it  can  be  called  into  action,  may  yet  lift  the 
whole  nation  to  higher  and  purer  life.  Our 
two  great  parties  are  the  principal  obstacle  in 
the  way  of  such  a  movement.  It  is  not  possible 
to  arouse  the  American  people  thoroughly,  ex- 
cept through  political  agitation,  and  both  these 
parties  —  which  have  become  simply  mills  to 
grind  the  people's  corn  to  make  bread  for  office- 
holders —  oppose  the  whole  weight  of  their  or- 
ganized power  to  every  honest  effort  to  bring 
about  a  moral  reformation.  So  long  as  the 
multitude  is  led  by  them,  our  worship  of  ma- 
jorities will  throw  an  air  of  quixotism  over 
every  attempt  to  stem  the  torrent  of  corruption. 
The  welfare  of  the  nation  demands  that  the  one 
or  the  other  cease  to  exist;  that  a  new  party, 


THE  BASIS  OF  POPULAR   GOVERNMENT.       49 

springing  from  the  deep  yearning  of  multitudes 
for  purer  and  nobler  national  life,  and  upheld 
by  the  enthusiasm  inspired  by  high  moral  aims 
and  purposes,  may  take  its  place. 

We  will  not  here  discuss  the  problems  that 
the  new  party  will  have  to  solve.  They  will 
relate  to  moral  rather  than  to  material  inter- 
ests. There  is,  first  of  all,  the  question  of  edu- 
cation. The  avoidance  of  religious  teaching  in 
the  common  schools  has  deprived  them  of  moral 
influence,  and  they  cultivate  a  faculty  instead  of 
forming  men.  Then  there  is  the  question  of  the 
liquor  traffic.  The  most  hideous  phase  of  our 
political  life  is  that  which  comes  of  its  associa- 
tion with  bar-rooms,  and  the  remedy  for  Ameri- 
can pauperism  is  not  a  wage  or  rent  theory,  but 
economy  and  sobriety.  There  is,  also,  the  ques- 
tion of  woman-suffrage.  The  experiment  will 
be  made,  whatever  our  theories  and  prejudices 
may  be.  Women  are  the  most  religious,  the 
most  moral,  and  the  most  sober  portion  of  the 
American  people,  and  it  is  not  easy  to  under- 
stand why  their  influence  in  public  life  is 
dreaded.  They  are  the  natural  educators  of 
the  race,  and  they  and  their  children  are  the 
chief  victims  of  drunken  men;  and  since  men 
have  been  unable  or  unwilling  to  form  a  right 
system  of  education  or  to  find  a  preventive  of 
intemperance,  there  can  be  no  great  harm  in 

4 


5O  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

giving,  in  these  matters  at  least,  an  experi- 
mental vote  to  women.  Then  there  is  the  ques- 
tion of  the  licentious  and  obscene  press,  as 
unlike  a  free  press  as  a  sot  is  unlike  a  true  man, 
which  is  a  more  deadly  and  insidious  poison 
than  the  adulterated  liquor  that  a  deluded  people 
pay  for  the  privilege  of  drinking. 

With  us,  material  interests  take  care  of  them- 
selves, since  the  whole  energy  of  the  people  turns 
upon  the  development  of  our  physical  resources ; 
and  hence  the  duty  of  those  who  have  faith  and 
hope  in  the  destiny  of  America  lies  elsewhere. 
In  the  presence  of  a  whole  people  thinking 
chiefly  of  money ;  talking  of  it,  yearning  for  it, 
toiling,  lying,  cheating,  to  get  hold  of  it ;  adul- 
terating food  and  drink  to  make  it;  displaying 
it  in  all  its  vulgar  glitter  in  their  homes  and 
equipages  and  on  their  bodies;  discussing  and 
solving  all  problems,  even  questions  of  the  soul, 
from  a  financial  point  of  view;  making  money 
the  measure  of  the  value  of  time;  determining 
the  worth  of  education  by  the  power  it  develops 
to  amass  wealth,  and  even  going  so  far  as  to 
hold  a  man's  money  the  nearest  equivalent  of 
himself,  —  in  the  presence  of  such  a  people 
there  is  need  of  power  to  proclaim,  as  with  the 
voice  of  God,  that  the  goodness  of  life  lies  in 
right-doing,  and  not  in  lucre. 


III. 

ARE  WE  IN  DANGER  OF  REVOLUTION? 

TJATTLES,  conflicts,  and  dangers  of  all 
-"*-*  kinds  have  a  mysterious  charm  for  the 
mind,  because  life,  whether  animal,  intellectual, 
or  moral,  whether  individual  or  social,  is  devel- 
oped and  attains  strength  and  excellence  only 
through  struggle;  and  it  would  lose  half  its 
charm  could  we  strip  it  of  the  element  of  danger, 
the  risk  of  loss,  the  hope  of  gain,  which  are 
never  absent  where  men  contend  for  the  mas- 
tery. Though  victory  is  the  end  of  fighting,  we 
love  the  combat  more  than  the  victory,  and  when 
the  battle  is  won  or  the  game  is  lost  our  interest 
dies ;  just  as  the  story  comes  to  an  end  when  the 
fretful  stream  of  love  merges  into  the  tame 
sea  of  marriage.  The  objects  for  which  we  con- 
tend change,  but  our  love  of  contention  never 
ceases  to  exist,  in  spite  of  the  poet's  saying  that 
repose  is  the  central  feeling  of  all  happiness. 
Effort,  which  is  born  of  struggle  and  conflict, 
is  to  life  what  motion  is  to  water  —  it  keeps  it 
pure  and  fresh;  and  an  individual  or  a  society 


52  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

which  gives  over  the  battle  for  higher  things, 
fatally  sinks  to  lower  plains. 

The  bloody  warfare,  which  is  the  delight  of 
savages  and  barbarians,  has  ceased  to  have  any 
charm  for  the  civilized  man  of  the  nineteenth 
century;  but  he  finds  himself  in  the  midst  of 
keener  and  intenser  conflicts,  from  which,  if  he 
would  live,  he  cannot  escape.  Among  savages 
and  barbarians  the  life  of  the  individual  is 
merged  and  lost  in  that  of  the  tribe  or  horde, 
but,  as  civilization  advances,  the  individual  does 
not  dwindle  but  grows.  The  tendency  is  to 
enable  him  to  choose  his  own  mode  of  life  and 
to  maintain  himself  in  his  position,  to  break  the 
bonds  which  hinder  the  use  of  his  faculties  and 
to  send  him  forth  into  the  arena  where  the  mil- 
lions contend  for  wealth  or  place,  and  where 
the  better  few  strive  for  intellectual  and  moral 
superiority.  He  becomes  a  reader,  a  thinker, 
an  independent  agent;  he  helps  to  mold  public 
opinion  and  shape  the  destinies  of  his  fellow- 
men.  In  this  way  civilization  brings  on  the 
reign  of  the  people,  and  makes  it  impossible 
that  any  strongest  man  should  control  a  nation. 
But  the  reign  of  the  people  in  setting  mightier 
forces  at  work  renders  more  gigantic  struggles 
inevitable.  Here  in  America,  freedom  of 
opinion  and  of  conscience  has  been  won ;  the 
battle  for  political  and  civil  liberty  has  been 


ARE    WE  IN  DANGER   OF  REVOLUTION?     53 

fought  and  gained ;  and  other  problems  present 
themselves  to  the  human  mind  which  never  truly 
appreciates  what  it  possesses,  but  by  the  law  of 
development,  as  by  the  hand  of  God,  is  led  on 
to  new  victories.  Social  questions  are  now 
uppermost  in  men's  minds,  as  political  questions 
absorbed  the  thought  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
Hereditary  privilege  has  vanished;  there  is 
liberty  of  thought  and  expression;  every  man 
has  a  right  to  vote ;  and  still  the  golden  age  has 
not  come.  Man  holds  the  forces  of  nature  in 
his  hands;  by  their  aid  he  has  increased  his 
wealth  to  an  incredible  degree;  he  has  brought 
the  ends  of  the  earth  together;  and  still  there 
are  millions  who  are  poor  and  wretched.  What- 
ever our  condition  may  be  as  contrasted  with 
that  of  past  ages,  the  world  is  still  full  of  evil 
and  discontent.  For  the  first  time  in  their  his- 
tory the  Christian  nations  have  created  a  phil- 
osophy of  despair,  so  that  it  has  become  possible 
to  doubt  whether  life  itself  is  not  a  curse.  What 
numberless  patent  remedies  and  panaceas  for 
our  troubles  have  been  blazoned  forth!  The 
alphabet  was  to  be  the  key  to  the  garden  of  Par- 
adise; but  the  multitude  have  been  taught  to 
read  and  write,  and  only  clamor  the  more  vocif- 
erously that  they  perish  in  desert  places  and 
quagmires. 

Alcohol,  it  has  been  asserted,  is  the  supreme 


54  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

evil ;  and  yet  the  countless  millions  of  Moham- 
medans and  Buddhists  are  sober,  but  unspeak- 
ably wretched.  And  so  each  sect  raises  its  cry 
affirming  or  denying,  and  in  the  confusion  of 
tongues  reason  grows  bewildered.  God  is 
solemnly  called  the  Supreme  Tyrant,  society  a 
universal  crime,  property  a  boundless  theft,  and 
marriage  the  worst  foe  of  love.  All  faiths  seem 
tottering  to  the  verge  of  shifting  opinion,  and 
in  their  frenzy  many  would  hardly  think  it  a 
loss  if  the  earth  itself  were  shattered.  What  is 
it,  anyhow,  but  an  ant-hill  lost  in  space? 

Such  notions  as  these  find  sporadic  utterance 
here,  but  they  do  not  represent  the  thought  or 
sentiment  of  any  considerable  body  of  Ameri- 
cans. We  are  not  theorists  and  dreamers,  but 
workers,  who  are  reasonably  satisfied  with  our 
work.  This  country,  it  may  be  said  without 
incurring  the  reproach  of  philistinism,  is  a 
blessed  land :  nowhere  else  are  such  opportu- 
nities offered  to  all  men ;  nowhere  else  do  such 
multitudes  find  it  possible  to  escape  from  igno- 
rance, poverty,  and  the  impotence  of  blind 
endeavor,  into  the  pure  light  of  free,  orderly, 
and  growing  life;  nowhere  else  is  there  more 
general  good-will  and  sympathy  in  spite  of  the 
mingling  of  heterogeneous  nationalities  and 
conflicting  creeds. 

How  quickly  the  angry  passions  of  our  Civil 


ARE   WE  IN  DANGER   OF  REVOLUTION?     55 

War  have  sunk  to  rest,  however  much  dema- 
gogues have  sought  to  keep  them  alive!  No 
hatred  can  long  flourish  here.  The  poor  do  not 
hate  the  rich,  and  the  rich  as  a  body  are  not 
indifferent  to  the  wants  of  the  poor.  Our 
wealthy  men  are  the  children  of  the  poor,  and 
their  children  or  grandchildren  will  either  perish 
utterly  or  go  to  work  again  with  the  laboring 
masses.  Thus  the  money  line,  which  is  really 
the  only  line  with  us  that  separates  class  from 
class,  is  not  a  fixed  boundary  dividing  hostile 
armies.  We  have,  after  all,  but  a  sprinkling 
of  very  rich  men,  who  have  their  uses,  even 
when  they  are  unintelligent  and  narrow-minded, 
or  personally  worthless.  Capital  is  the  army 
of  a  commercial  age,  and  capitalists  are  necessary 
to  undertake  and  carry  on  great  enterprises; 
they  fill  the  places  of  the  captains  of  warlike 
ages.  A  railroad  king  may  inflict  financial  ruin 
upon  individuals  and  be  unjust  to  his  employees, 
but  he  will  develop  the  country  and  bring  ma- 
terial blessings  to  thousands.  Even  stock- 
waterers  and  railway-wreckers  probably  do 
more  good  than  harm  to  the  general  public. 
But  the  great  capitalists,  as  I  have  said,  are 
few,  and  in  America  pauperism  is  accidental. 
The  people  are  neither  paupers  nor  millionaires, 
but  workers,  whose  energy  and  thrift  secure 
them  a  competence.  Seven  million  seven  hun- 


56  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

dred  and  fifty  thousand  of  these  are  farmers, 
while  only  about  half  that  number  are  engaged 
in  manufacturing.  Three-fourths  of  these 
farmers  own  the  land  they  cultivate,  and  the 
general  tendency  is  to  diminish  rather  than  to 
increase  the  size  of  farms.  Our  laborers,  too, 
receive  higher  wages  and  live  in  greater  plenty 
than  those  of  any  other  country.  The  story  of 
our  material  progress  reads  like  a  dream,  and 
we  who  are  now  living  see  but  the  beginnings 
of  this  incomprehensible  work;  and  in  many 
other  respects  our  course  is  forward.  Each  gen- 
eration begins  the  life-struggle  from  a  higher 
plain.  The  multitudes  who  arrive  here  from 
Europe  feel  the  quickening  influence  of  our  life, 
and  their  nobler  faculties  awaken.  Thousands 
each  year  revisit  their  native  lands  and  feel  like 
strangers  there,  so  thoroughly  have  they  become 
imbued  with  the  American  spirit.  They  are  not 
only  satisfied  with  our  political  institutions,  but 
find  it  difficult  to  imagine  that  they  were  ever 
able  to  bear  the  shackles  and  restraints  of  less 
liberal  governments.  If  ours  is  the  country  of 
rich  men,  why  do  the  poor,  from  the  ends  of  the 
earth,  flock  to  our  shores?  If  capitalists  exer- 
cise here  a  tyrannic  power,  why  do  the  oppressed 
of  every  land  seek  refuge  with  us?  In  truth, 
we  occupy  the  foremost  position  among  the  free 
nations  of  the  world,  and  wherever  political 


ARE    WE  IN  DANGER   OF  REVOLUTION?     57 

development  is  taking  place  it  is  in  the  direction 
in  which  we  are  leading.  Our  people  either 
know  this  or  feel  it  instinctively,  and  they  really 
have  no  fears  at  all  as  to  the  fortune  of  the 
Republic. 

There  is  no  other  government  which  rests  so 
completely  upon  the  assent  and  approval  of  the 
governed,  and  that  is  the  strongest  foundation. 
Shall  they  who  know  and  feel  this  grow  alarmed 
because  a  fanatic  has  thrown  a  bomb  into  a 
squad  of  policemen?  Or  shall  they  have  mis- 
givings as  to  the  future  of  democratic  govern- 
ment because,  now  and  then,  here  and  there,  in 
times  of  excitement  mobs  gather  and  deeds  of 
violence  are  done?  If  such  things  can  be  a 
serious  danger  to  the  Republic,  our  condition  is 
indeed  pitiable.  What  peculiar  forms  of  fanat- 
icism may  develop  in  individual  cases  no  one  can 
foresee,  but  anarchical  doctrines  must  die  out 
here  from  lack  of  a  suitable  environment.  They 
have  not  sprung  from  our  soil,  but  have  been 
imported  from  social  conditions  wholly  dissim- 
ilar to  ours,  and  the  masses  of  our  laborers  have 
as  little  sympathy  with  them  as  the  wealthy 
classes  have.  The  preaching  of  such  doctrines 
is  undoubtedly  criminal,  and  ought  to  be  pun- 
ished by  law;  but  our  society  must  undergo 
radical  changes  before  this  fanaticism  can  be- 
come a  menace  to  our  institutions.  Our  politi- 


58  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR-. 

cal  life  lies  in  the  supremacy  of  the  law,  and 
any  party  which  attempts  to  defy  its  sovereign 
majesty  will  be  mercilessly  crushed;  for  the 
supremacy  of  the  law  means  internal  peace,  the 
protection  of  life  and  property,  and  the  freedom 
of  the  individual,  and  it  is  precisely  to  secure 
these  objects  that  our  government  exists.  *A 
fanaticism  such  as  that  of  the  anarchists  can 
grow  and  extend  itself  only  under  an  arbitrary 
and  tyrannical  power.  Only  the  sense  of  the 
most  terrible  wrongs  can  create  so  unnatural 
and  extreme  a  temper.  The  destructive  tenets 
of  the  Nihilists  and  German  Socialists  are  the 
correlatives  of  Siberian  dungeons  and  military 
despotism;  but  they  cannot  become  contagious 
here,  because  the  food  needed  for  the  propaga- 
tion of  the  germ  is  not  supplied. 

Our  labor  troubles  are  of  an  altogether  dif- 
ferent nature  from  this  scarecrow  of  anarchy 
and  socialism,  and  they  are  more  serious.  It 
is  our  mission  to  give  larger  liberty  and  fuller 
life,  not  to  a  privileged  class  but  to  the  whole 
people.  That  the  race  should  live  for  a  few  men 
is  not  tolerable  from  our  point  of  view,  and  our 
destiny  compels  us  to  strive  to  bring  about  a 
social  condition  in  which  all  men  shall  live  for 
every  man.  Now  the  lot  of  the  laborer  is  not 
here  or  anywhere  what  we  know  and  feel  it 
might  be  and  ought  to  be.  The  laborers,  who 


ARE    WE  IN  DANGER   OF  REVOLUTION?     59 

in  proportion  as  their  minds  have  been  awak- 
ened, have  become  conscious  of  the  hardships 
and  limitations  to  which  they  are  subject,  feel 
this  more  keenly  than  any  other  class,  and  hence 
they  have  formed  innumerable  organizations  to 
protect  their  rights  and  promote  their  interests. 
It  is  utterly  futile  to  make  an  outcry  against 
these  trades-unions  and  combinations  of  unions. 
They  exist,  and  the  ends  for  which  they  exist, 
in  spite  of  incidental  abuses  connected  with  their 
working,  are  praiseworthy,  and  there  is  no 
power  which  can  put  them  down. 

To  attempt  to  resist  or  thwart  the  legitimate 
claims  of  working  men,  is  to  provoke  a  state 
of  things  which  might  become  a  serious  menace 
to  the  prosperity  of  the  country.  The  problem 
is  complex,  and  to  look  for  some  easy,  ready- 
made  solution  is  idle.  In  virtue  of  a  law  which  is 
inherent  in  human  nature,  the  poor  are  bent  upon 
getting  rich,  and  the  rich  on  growing  richer. 
To  get  money,  and  as  much  money  as  possible, 
is  the  aim  and  end  both  of  the  employer  and  the 
employed,  and  hence  there  arises  between  them 
an  inevitable  conflict.  The  capitalist  is  ready 
to  take  advantage  of  every  opportunity  to  lower 
wages,  the  workman  of  every  opportunity  to 
demand  higher  pay;  and  thus  the  almost  irre- 
sistible tendency  is  to  form  themselves  into  op- 
posing armies,  whereas  the  only  hope  of  a  better 


60  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

state  of  tilings  lies  in  their  being  friends.  Labor 
creates  capital,  and  capital  gives  labor  a  field 
to  work  in. 

But  of  what  avail  is  a  truth  like  this  when 
there  is  question  of  controlling  passions  which 
are  stronger  than  reason  ?  High  and  vital  prin- 
ciples must  be  kept  in  view,  and  above  all,  the 
question  must  be  examined  without  anger  or 
partisan  bias.  We  should  not  grow  weary  of 
telling  rich  and  poor  that  there  are  better  things 
than  money ;  that  the  best  things,  as  love,  virtue, 
intelligence,  cannot  be  bought;  that  he  whose 
chief  aim  in  life  is  to  get  money  and  its  equiva- 
lents is  an  inferior  sort  of  man ;  that  the  truest 
and  the  deepest  contentment  comes  of  the  con- 
sciousness of  right-doing,  and  not  of  the  knowl- 
edge that  we  have  so  many  dollars;  and  that 
with  but  little  a  true  man  may  lead  a  not  un- 
worthy life,  and  escape  the  weariness  and  fears 
inherent  in  the  possession  of  riches,  which  wean 
the  heart  from  the  heavenly  fountains  of  admi- 
ration, hope,  and  love.  Truths  like  these  to  be 
effective  must  be  taught  by  religion  and  litera- 
ture, and  we  who  find  it  impossible  to  escape 
the  commercial  spirit,  with  its  single  standard 
of  value,  must  look  to  these  spiritual  powers  to 
give  us  ideals  which  may  lift  us  above  the  flat 
wastes  of  materialism.  They  also  alone  can 
properly  teach  that  beauty  is  useful,  that  admi- 


ARE    WE  IN  DANGER   OF  REVOLUTION?     6 1 

ration  and  reverence  are  essential  to  noble  life, 
and  that  to  rest  in  sin  or  ignorance  is  the  sign 
of  death.  Let  us  also  not  cease  to  proclaim  that 
neither  God  nor  churches  nor  states  will  save 
the  vicious  and  the  idle  from  the  consequences 
of  their  crime  and  folly ;  that  it  is  of  the  nature 
of  right  conduct  and  true  work  not  only  to 
bring  success  and  sufficiency,  but  to  give  health, 
contentment,  and  strength  as  well.  If  the  one 
good  is  money  with  what  it  will  buy,  then  feuds 
and  hatreds  must  be  perpetual.  Our  wants  are 
infinite,  and  if  you  take  from  man  the  ideals 
given  by  religion  and  literature,  a  hundred  mil- 
lions will  leave  him  still  a  beggar.  A  false  view 
of  life  is  our  radical  defect.  Our  political  prob- 
lems always  hinge  on  some  money  problem,  our 
educational  system  looks  primarily  to  the  fitting 
men  for  money-getting,  for  our  young  men 
success  means  riches,  and  our  very  worship  im- 
plies that  the  poor  are  unfit  for  the  kingdom 
of  heaven.  Thus  we  lose  sight  of  man  and 
think  only  of  money;  we  increase  our  wealth, 
while  faith  and  hope  and  love  and  intelligence 
diminish;  we  build  great  cities  to  be  inhabited 
by  little  men;  we  are  keen  to  drive  a  bargain 
and  slow  to  recognize  a  noble  soul;  we  have 
eyes  for  bank-notes,  and  we  move  dumb  and 
unraised  beneath  the  starlit  heavens.  If  it  were 
possible  that  a  great  philosopher  or  poet  should 


62  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

arise  among  us,  some  foreigner  would  have  to 
point  him  out  to  us ;  but  we  know  our  own,  our 
men  of  boundless  wealth,  whom  we  envy  and 
despise.  So  long  as  our  whole  national  life- 
struggle  continues  to  be  carried  on  around  this 
single  point  of  finance,  what  hope  is  there  of 
avoiding  fatal  conflicts?  The  rich  will  worship 
their  god  Mammon  alone,  and  the  poor  will  plot 
and  scheme  to  shatter  the  idol ;  and  mechanical 
contrivances,  such  as  arbitration  boards  and 
legislative  enactments,  will  leave  the  root  of  the 
evil  untouched. 

It  is  essential  that  we  should  know  that  the 
real  and  final  test  of  a  government,  as  of  a  re- 
ligion, is  the  kind  of  man  it  produces,  and  not 
the  amount  of  money.  We  must  return  to  the 
ideals  of  our  forefathers,  who  preferred  free- 
dom, intelligence,  and  strength  to  wealth,  and 
who  dedicated  this  land  to  higher  manhood,  and 
not  to  fatter  mammonhood.  Our  politics,  our 
literature,  our  whole  national  life,  must  be  more 
concerned  for  man  than  for  his  money.  No  one 
doubts  the  importance  of  the  interests  of  trade : 
we  all  desire  that  our  manufacturers  should  be 
able  to  compete  with  other  nations  in  the  markets 
of  the  world;  but  if  the  interests  of  trade  and 
competition  involve  the  degradation  of  millions 
of  our  fellow-citizens,  we  shall  cry  out  that  the 
Sabbath  was  made  for  man  and  not  man  for  the 


ARE    WE  IN  DANGER   OF  REVOLUTION?     63 

Sabbath.  The  interests  of  the  working  man  are 
primary;  the  interests  of  capital  are  secondary. 
If  the  trades-unions  shall  succeed  in  forcing 
politicians  to  recognize  that  financial  interests 
are  not  the  only  or  principal  human  interests, 
they  will  have  conferred  a  benefit  upon  the 
nation.  Men,  and  not  measures,  are  the  first 
need  of  every  society,  and  therefore  all  social 
schemes  should  look  first  to  the  forming  of  true 
men.  But,  in  truth,  only  men  create  and  educate 
men,  and  one  of  the  delusions  of  the  age  is  that 
this  can  be  done  by  some  sort  of  mechanical 
contrivance.  Hence  we  look  to  legislation  and 
government  control  to  do  what  only  vital  forces 
can  effect,  and  after  the  failure  of  each  enact- 
ment some  new  scheme  is  tried,  until  law  itself 
is  in  danger  of  falling  into  discredit.  Better 
laws  are  desirable,  but  a  true  view  of  life  is 
indispensable,  and  no  state  mechanism  can  prop- 
erly take  care  of  full-grown  men  and  women 
who  have  not  learned  how  to  take  care  of  them- 
selves. The  growing  disposition  to  look  to  the 
general  government  for  aid  in  every  emergency 
is  a  symptom  of  disease;  it  is  an  outgrowth  of 
habits  and  principles,  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  our 
institutions. 

The  tendency  of  good  government  is  to  make 
government  unnecessary,  since  it  trains  people 
to  habits  of  industry,  self-reliance,  and  order. 


64  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

The  strong  and  energetic  love  freedom.  A 
social  state  in  which  the  whole  life  of  the  indi- 
vidual is  absorbed  and  controlled  by  some  ex- 
ternal ruling  power,  can  seem  good  only  to  the 
feeble  and  inactive;  and  this  is  the  aim  of  the 
modern  Socialists,  and  their  theories.  These 
have  sprung  from  false  and  exaggerated  senti- 
ment, or  from  lack  of  mental  soundness  and 
breadth  of  view,  and  are  a  menace  to  all  that  is 
most  healthful  and  manly  in  human  nature  and 
Christian  civilization.  The  end  of  society  is  not 
to  secure  to  all  men  the  highest  possible  amount 
of  physical  comfort  and  sensual  enjoyment,  but 
to  give  to  all  men  the  best  possible  opportunities 
of  developing  their  physical,  intellectual,  moral, 
and  aesthetic  endowments;  and  this  is  done  by 
stimulating  individual  energy,  and  by  leaving 
the  highest  prizes  to  be  won  by  effort  and 
struggle.  Paternal  government  is,  no  doubt, 
best  for  children  and  slaves,  but  the  nobler  races 
have  preferred  freedom  even  to  the  tenderest 
care. 

There  is  in  innumerable  minds,  who  have  a 
horror  of  the  current  socialistic  doctrines,  an  un- 
conscious leaning  toward  socialism,  which  is 
seen  in  the  tendency  to  enlarge  the  powers  of 
the  State.  The  founders  of  the  Republic  held 
that  the  State  should  assume  no  authority  over 
the  individual,  save  such  as  is  indispensable  to 


ARE    WE  IN  DANGER   OF  REVOLUTION?     65 

the  general  welfare;  and  how  far  we  have  de- 
parted from  this  wise  and  generous  view! 

The  State  has  taken  control  of  education,  and 
is  thereby  weakening  one  of  the  most  essential 
and  vital  social  forces  —  the  sense  of  responsi- 
bility in  parents.  It  has,  in  consequence,  been 
led  to  exclude  religious  instruction  from  the 
process  of  education;  has,  indeed,  abandoned 
the  work  of  education,  and  contented  itself  with 
some  sort  of  mental  training  which  sharpens  the 
intellect  but  leaves  the  moral  nature  untouched 
and  unraised.  As  a  result,  the  young  lose  rever- 
ence, lose  the  power  of  discerning  what  is  high 
and  noble,  and  are  only  a  more  enlightened  sort 
of  barbarians.  Had  the  State  confined  itself  to 
encouraging  and  assisting  the  religious  denomi- 
nations to  found  and  maintain  schools,  and  to 
giving  aid  to  private  educational  enterprises,  it 
would  have  acted  in  harmony  with  our  theory 
of  government,  and  we  should  be  to-day  a 
worthier,  more  religious  and  not  less  enlight- 
ened people;  while,  from  an  economic  point  of 
view,  education  would  have  been  made  vastly 
cheaper.  In  the  same  way  the  tendency  is  now 
to  give  the  State  control  of  public  charities  and 
works  of  reform,  whereas  the  proper  method  to 
pursue  is  to  have  the  State  encourage  and  assist 
denominational  and  private  beneficence. 

The  recent  labor  agitations  serve  to  show  how 
5 


66  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

naturally  our  thoughts  turn  to  State  socialism 
whenever  danger  seems  to  threaten.  If  the 
State  owned  all  railroads,  it  is  asserted,  troubles 
such  as  have  disturbed  the  peace  and  prosperity 
of  the  country  during  the  last  few  months  would 
not  occur.  But  in  thus  enlarging  the  functions  of 
the  government,  we  would  double  the  number 
of  its  officials,  and  greatly  increase  the  influence 
of  professional  politicians,  who  in  various  ways 
are  doing  more  than  all  other  classes  combined 
to  bring  discredit  upon  democratic  institutions. 
They  are  the  men  who  praise  the  people  and 
betray  their  interests,  who  flatter  the  working 
men  and  take  the  bribes  of  capitalists  and 
wealthy  corporations.  They  make  possible  the 
wholesale  gambling,  the  stock-watering,  the 
railway  wrecking,  the  corruption  of  the  judi- 
ciary and  the  legislature,  which  are  in  so  many 
instances  the  agencies  used  in  accumulating 
colossal  fortunes.  And  the  knowledge  of  this 
scandalous  state  of  things,  more  than  any  other 
cause,  favors  the  propagation  of  socialistic  doc- 
trines, and  leads  the  people  to  hold  the  govern- 
ment in  slight  esteem,  and  to  think  there  would 
be  no  great  harm  in  taking  from  the  money 
barons  their  ill-gotten  goods.  Thus  the  politi- 
cians are  helping  to  undermine  respect  for  law 
and  belief  in  the  sacredness  of  property.  If 
there  is  no  hope  except  in  them,  then  there  is  no 


ARE    WE  IN  DANGER   OF  REVOLUTION?     6? 

hope  at  all.  Politicians  work  through  major- 
ities, whereas  minorities  shape  the  higher  des- 
tinies of  nations;  and  it  is  all  important  that 
we  should  learn  that  a  man  is  not  necessarily 
visionary,  or  weak  in  mind,  because  he  does  not 
run  with  the  crowd.  Gordon  writes,  in  his 
"  Memoirs,"  that  the  British  Empire  has  been 
built  up  by  adventurers,  and  not  by  the  gov- 
ernment. The  principle  involved  in  this  fact 
lies  at  the  root  of  our  social  faith.  The  blood 
which  courses  in  our  veins  impels  us  to  put  our 
trust  in  God  and  in  our  single  might ;  and  hence 
the  normal  tendency  of  our  institutions  is  to 
increase  the  worth  and  influence  of  the  indi- 
vidual, and  to  narrow  the  sphere  and  action  of 
government.  If  we  lose  confidence  in  ourselves, 
and  in  every  emergency  look  to  the  government 
for  help,  how  shall  we  escape  the  slavish  mind 
and  coward  heart? 

The  greatest  peril  to  be  feared  from  labor 
organization  is  that  the  working  men  will  be 
led  to  put  overmuch  trust  in  these  mechanical 
contrivances,  and  will  cease  to  look  to  the  vital 
sources  of  strength.  When  they  have  learned 
to  confide  their  dearest  interests  to  a  trades- 
union,  it  will  not  be  difficult  to  persuade  them 
to  surrender  themselves,  body  and  soul,  to  a 
socialistic  State.  Good  government  may  secure 
freedom  and  opportunity,  but  the  effort,  sobri- 


68  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

ety,  and  intelligence  of  the  individual  can  alone 
give  worth  and  dignity  to  human  life.  Let 
political  economists  still  insist  upon  their  iron 
laws  of  wages,  of  supply  and  demand,  but  let 
us  not  lose  our  faith  in  free-will;  for  so  long 
as  we  believe  that  there  is  an  element  of  freedom 
in  the  individual,  we  shall  feel  that  social  evolu- 
tion is  not  wholly  fatal;  and  if  much  depends 
upon  inexorable  laws,  much  also  depends  upon 
the  faith,  hope,  love,  knowledge,  pity,  and 
courage  of  man.  Sympathy,  the  spirit  of  hu- 
manity, the  Godward  mind,  have  wrought  the 
miracles  which  political  economy  cannot  even 
explain.  Having  done  much,  not  for  ourselves 
alone  but  for  all  nations,  let  us  keep  a  brave 
heart,  and  believe  that  where  all  men  think  and 
act,  the  common  sense  of  most  will  prevail,  and 
wisdom,  virtue,  and  nobler  manhood  be  the 
result.  It  is  a  religious  duty  to  work  for  the 
good  of  this  country,  and  it  is  not  easy  to 
imagine  that  any  one  can  love  God  or  man  and 
hate  America. 


IV. 

CHARITY  AND  JUSTICE. 

r^HE  love  of  self  is  the  radical  passion  of 
A  human  nature.  It  is  the  love  of  life  and 
of  that  which  constitutes  the  good  of  life,  and 
it  is  strongest  in  those  who  are  most  alive,  in 
whom  the  vital  current  is  deepest  and  might- 
iest. It  is  the  inner  source  of  strength  in  high 
and  heroic  souls,  whether  they  seek  to  utter 
themselves  in  word  or  in  deed,  whether  they 
strive  for  fame  or  for  power  or  for  union  with 
God,  through  faith  and  devotion  to  truth  and 
righteousness.  Whatever  the  aim  and  the 
means,  the  end  all  men  propose  and  follow  is 
their  own  happiness,  a  more  intense  and  enduring 
sense  of  their  own  life.  Personality  is  enrooted 
in  the  love  of  self,  and  the  higher  the  person  the 
more  completely  does  he  identify  himself  with 
all  that  is  other  than  himself.  Savages,  in  their 
feeble  attempts  to  think,  consider  things  to  be 
self-existent,  each  standing  apart  and  indepen- 
dent, and  hence  the  love  of  self  is  in  them  a 
selfish  love.  As  they  are  incapable  of  perceiving 


7O  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

that  their  relations  to  nature  and  to  society  are 
essential  elements  of  their  being,  they  imagine 
that  the  good  of  life  for  each  one  is  separable 
from  the  general  welfare.  Hence  they  easily 
become  false,  cruel,  treacherous,  and  revengeful. 
They  lack  humanity;  they  are  the  victims  of 
instinct  and  impulse.  They  have  the  kind  of 
social  sense  which  is  found  in  gregarious  ani- 
mals, but  they  are  unable  to  ascend  to  the  con- 
ception of  the  universal  law  which  binds  the 
whole  race  into  a  brotherhood.  The  degree  in 
which  individuals  and  societies  rise  above  this 
separateness  of  childish  and  savage  thought  is 
a  measure  of  the  degree  of  their  progress  in 
religion  and  civilization.  All  advance  is  an 
ascent  from  the  primitive  and  superficial  self 
toward  the  true  self,  which  is  born  of  the  union 
of  the  soul  with  truth,  justice,  and  love.  It  is 
a  process  of  self-estrangement,  of  self-denial,  of 
self-abandonment.  They  alone  enter  the  land 
of  promise  who  quit  the  low  and  narrow  house 
of  their  early  thoughts  and  desires,  and  struggle 
with  ceaseless  effort  and  patience  to  reach  the 
kingdom  that  is  founded  on  the  eternal  principles 
of  righteousness.  They  believe  and  know  that 
peace,  joy,  and  blessedness,  which  are  the  end 
to  which  the  love  of  self  points,  can  be  attained 
only  by  those  who  seek  and  find  the  good  of 
life  in  the  service  of  the  Father  who  is  in  heaven, 


CHARITY  AND  JUSTICE.  71 

and  of  His  children  who  are  on  earth.  Self- 
seeking  is  transformed  into  self-devotion;  a 
little  world  of  petty  cares  and  sordid  interests  is 
abandoned,  and  the  enduring  world  wherein 
alone  souls  are  at  home  opens  wide  its  portals 
to  receive  us.  In  isolation,  the  individual  is 
never  great  or  impressive.  To  be  so  he  must 
identify  himself  with  truth  and  justice,  with 
beauty  and  love.  He  must  feel  that  he  lives  and 
battles  in  the  company  of  God  and  in  that  of  the 
noble  and  good,  in  some  cause  which  is  not 
merely  his  own,  but  that  of  mankind. 

He  could  never  become  man  at  all  were  it 
not  for  the  society  and  help  of  his  fellows.  The 
human  child  would  perish  at  once  were  it  not 
received,  at  birth,  into  the  arms  of  intelligence 
and  love ;  and  its  prolonged  infancy  would  issue 
in  nothing  higher  than  savagery,  were  it  not 
fostered  by  beings  in  whom  instinct  has  been 
superseded  by  reflection  and  the  sense  of  respon- 
sibility. In  Christendom  the  individual  enters 
the  world  as  the  heir  of  all  time.  For  him  the 
race  has  suffered  and  groped  and  toiled  through 
ages  that  have  sunk  into  oblivion.  For  him 
countless  generations  have  fashioned  language 
—  the  social  organ  —  into  an  instrument  fitted 
to  express  all  that  he  can  feel  or  know.  The 
clothes  he  wears,  the  home  that  shelters  him 
and  makes  him  self-respecting,  every  implement 


72  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

he  uses,  every  contrivance  that  ministers  to  his 
comfort  and  security  have  been  fashioned  in  the 
process  of  unnumbered  centuries,  by  the  pains 
and  privations,  by  the  sufferings  and  deaths,  of 
tribes  and  peoples  to  whose  labors  he  gives  no 
heed. 

If  he  is  born  into  a  world  where  religion, 
science  and  morality,  law,  order  and  liberty, 
make  it  possible  that  he  should  lead  a  life  of 
reverence,  wisdom,  and  purity,  and  have  rights 
and  possessions  which  are  defended  by  pub- 
lic opinion  and  the  power  of  the  combined 
strength  of  all ;  where  his  home  is  sacred,  where 
his  conscience  is  respected,  where  opportunity 
for  the  exercise  of  every  talent  is  given,  he  owes 
all  this  not  in  any  way  at  all  to  himself,  but  to 
others.  And  if  in  the  midst  of  this  world  he 
himself  is  to  have  worth  and  significance,  joy 
and  peace,  he  must  turn  from  himself  and  seek 
a  better  self  through  devotion  to  his  fellow-men, 
whether  they  be  in  his  home  or  in  his  church 
or  in  his  nation  or  anywhere  on  God's  round 
earth.  He  can  have  no  real  importance  unless 
he  ally  himself  with  truth  and  justice  and  love, 
the  knowledge  and  practice  of  which  are  within 
his  reach  because  he  is  a  member  of  a  social 
organism.  He  is  not  self-made,  he  is  a  product 
of  all  the  forces  which  have  been  at  work  in  the 
universe  from  the  beginning.  He  partakes  of 


CHARITY  AND  JUSTICE.  73 

what  nature  provides,  and  he  gathers  the  fruits 
of  the  seeds  that  saints  and  sages  and  heroes 
have  sown  up  and  down  the  world  from  imme- 
morial ages.  He  is  made  strong  and  enduring 
by  the  struggles  and  labors  of  the  race  to  which 
he  belongs. 

For  him  the  martyrs  have  died,  for  him  the 
poets  have  sung,  for  him  the  patient,  tireless 
investigators  have  revealed  the  secrets  which 
have  given  to  the  mind  control  of  the  forces  that 
lie  in  the  heavens,  and  in  the  earth.  Mankind 
has  lived  for  him;  it  is  his  duty  to  live  for 
whomsoever  he  can  help.  His  proper  home  is 
above  nature:  in  the  domain  of  reason,  in  the 
realm  of  freedom,  in  the  kingdom  of  righteous- 
ness, in  the  spiritual  world;  where  that  which 
we  communicate  becomes  doubly  our  own, 
where  knowledge  begets  knowledge,  where  love 
kindles  love,  where  charity  burns  the  more,  the 
more  it  becomes  self-diffusive.  A  man  cannot 
be  wise  or  good  or  strong  for  himself  alone. 
He  is  formed  and  confirmed  by  the  virtues  he 
imparts  even  more  than  by  those  he  receives.  If 
his  heart  be  set  on  material  things,  he  may 
gather  them  for  himself,  may  grow  hard  and 
exclusive,  ignoble  and  base ;  but  if  his  supreme 
desire  be  for  the  things  of  the  soul,  he  must 
communicate  the  blessings  he  gains,  or  they  will 
vanish.  In  the  home,  in  the  church,  in  the 


74  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

nation,  the  important  thing  for  each  one  is 
the  help  he  gives,  the  benefits  he  bestows.  He 
who  is  not  a  source  of  faith,  of  courage,  of 
joy  for  those  about  him,  has  no  well-spring 
of  divine  life  within  himself.  He  must  educate 
if  he  would  be  educated;  he  must  ennoble  if 
he  would  be  made  noble;  he  must  diffuse  reli- 
gious thought  and  love  if  he  would  become 
religious. 

Every  worthy  form  of  individual  activity  is 
altruistic.  The  money  paid  is  never  the  equiva- 
lent of  the  work  done ;  and  whether  the  laborer 
be  farmer  or  builder,  physician  or  teacher,  he 
must  look  beyond  the  price  he  gets  to  the  good 
he  does;  he  must  interfuse  good-will  and  the 
desire  to  be  of  help  with  all  he  does  and  with 
all  he  receives  for  what  he  does,  or  he  will 
shrivel  into  something  that  appears  to  be  alive, 
but  is  dead.  It  must  be  his  object  to  realize  him- 
self, not  chiefly  in  his  primitive  physical  self 
with  its  material  needs  and  sordid  interests,  but 
he  must  bend  all  his  energies  to  rise  from  the 
low  bed  whereon  nature  has  laid  him  to  the 
sphere  where  God  manifests  himself  as  Truth 
and  Love,  as  Beauty  and  Righteousness,  as  Life 
Everlasting.  Then  he  shall  find  himself  in  ac- 
cord with  the  things  that  are  permanent,  with 
the  good  that  is  absolute;  then  shall  he  learn 
sympathy  with  all  who  live  and  are  hard  pressed 


CHARITY  AND  JUSTICE.  f$ 

and  beset  with  doubts  and  temptations,  who  are 
overburdened,  whose  feet  are  caught  in  the 
meshes  of  sin,  whose  hands  hang  helpless  be- 
cause joy  in  work  is  denied  them. 

Then  shall  he  forget  altruism  and  awaken  to 
love  —  to  the  love  that  poised  the  heavens  and 
holds  the  stars  in  place ;  that  speaks  to  us  when 
we  look  on  flowers  and  ripening  harvests  and 
the  faces  of  the  fair  and  innocent;  when  we 
think  of  home  and  country  and  the  graves  of  the 
dear  ones  who  have  fallen  asleep  —  to  the  love 
which  drew  the  Eternal  Father  from  the  infinite 
unseen  to  clothe  himself  with  flesh,  to  walk  with 
His  children,  to  die  for  them,  that  henceforth 
every  soul  might  understand  that  Love  is  the 
absolute  fact  behind,  above,  and  beyond  all  that 
appears;  that  it  is  the  charity  of  God;  yea, 
God  himself.  What  is  a  way  of  believing  and 
thinking  may  be  made  also  a  way  of  feeling  and 
acting.  A  passionate  devotion  to  the  salvation 
and  welfare  of  men  is  aroused  in  innumerable 
souls,  who,  smitten  with  a  sacred  enthusiasm, 
leave  father  and  mother  and  home  and  country 
that  they  may  become  the  servants  of  the  out- 
cast, the  abandoned,  the  fallen,  of  all  whom 
inevitable  circumstance  and  pitiless  law  over- 
whelm and  crush. 

To  this  new  mood  and  temper  no  condition, 
no  state  in  which  a  human  being  may  be  placed, 


76  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

appears  to  be  hopeless.  The  saving  power  ot 
infinite  love  is  infinite.  When  reason  despairs, 
the  heart  still  believes  and  hopes;  and  the  best 
and  the  noblest  are  not  those  who  calculate,  but 
those  who  with  divine  confidence  yield  to  the 
impulses  which  descend  from  worlds  to  which 
the  understanding  cannot  rise.  This  is  the 
power  which  moves  and  consecrates  the  lives  of 
mothers  and  of  all  true  lovers,  of  patriots  and 
saints,  of  virgins  and  martyrs.  Life  is  not  a 
balance  sheet  —  it  is  a  breathing  of  God,  awak- 
ening souls  to  service  and  to  love.  When  a  man 
is  prepared  to  live  and  to  die  for  some  good 
cause  that  is  all  the  world's,  and  not  alone  his 
own,  he  has  become  a  dweller  in  realms  which 
lie  beyond  the  reach  of  the  mere  intellect.  To 
these  heights  the  life  and  teaching  of  Christ 
have  lifted  innumerable  souls,  enabling  them  to 
love  and  serve  not  merely  the  beautiful,  the 
brave,  and  the  generous,  but  to  love  and  serve 
those  who  have  nothing  amiable  in  themselves, 
who  are  stricken  with  poverty,  vice,  and  disease, 
who  distrust  and  hate  us,  who  are  our  enemies 
and  their  own.  His  coming  is  like  the  coming  of 
spring.  The  snows  melt,  the  icy  bands  break, 
the  waters  leap  and  sing,  the  earth  awakens 
from  its  death-like  lethargy  and  clothes  itself 
in  many-tinted  vesture,  the  young  are  joyful, 
and  the  old  grow  young  again.  So  in  the  hu- 


CHARITY  AND  JUSTICE.  77 

man  world  of  faith  and  hope,  of  thought  and 
conduct,  of  love  and  service,  Christ  unseals  the 
fountains  of  sympathy  and  helpfulness  and 
mercy  which  lie  in  the  heart  of  man,  but  which 
cruelty  and  greed  and  tyranny  had  congealed. 
In  the  ancient  world,  patriotism,  which  was  its 
special  virtue,  consecrated  the  instinct  of  hatred 
for  the  foreigner.  The  earth  was  divided 
among  savages,  barbarians,  and  civilized  men 
whose  moral  code  was  founded  on  a  philosophy 
of  selfishness.  Man's  divine  origin  and  destiny 
were  forgotten,  the  sacred  meaning  and  worth 
of  life  were  ignored.  The  gods  were  not  be- 
lieved to  take  interest  in  human  morality  or 
human  welfare,  and  for  the  best  of  men  there 
was  no  refuge  from  the  ruin  wrought  by  greed 
and  lust  and  tyranny,  save  in  a  kind  of  stoic 
indifference  and  despair.  The  virtues  of  mild- 
ness, mercy,  serviceableness,  chastity,  and  lowly- 
mindedriess  were  considered  weaknesses  and 
defects.  When  Christ  embodied  in  His  deeds 
and  words  the  vital  truth  that  God  is  a  Father 
who  verily  loves  His  children;  that  He  is  all- 
holy;  that  righteousness  is  life;  that  only  the 
pure  in  heart  can  know  Him;  that  those  who 
hunger  and  thirst  to  do  His  will  enter  His 
kingdom,  which  is  open  to  the  meanest  and  most 
abandoned,  if  they  but  repent  and  have  faith 
and  charity,  there  was  a  revelation  from  heaven, 


78  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

the  opening  of  a  fountain  of  immortal  life  in 
time  and  in  eternity. 

Enthusiasm,  devotion,  and  love  have  no  real 
object,  no  meaning,  no  worth,  if  man's  life  is 
but  an  apparition,  an  exhalation  from  a  charnel 
house,  a  pathological  growth,  a  mere  dream  of 
life  in  a  universe  essentially  and  eternally  dead. 
One  who  believes  not  in  God  must  cherish  a 
thousand  lies  to  save  himself  from  despair. 
How  can  he  who  beneath  the  universal  appear- 
ance that  lures  him  sees  but  the  deception,  the 
trickery,  the  vileness,  the  vanity,  which  it  veils, 
have  a  great  mind  or  a  loving  heart?  But  this 
is  what  he  must  see  if  in  all  and  above  all  he 
sees  not  God.  Now,  in  Christ,  the  Eternal 
Father  is  made  visible,  and  henceforth  all  may 
know  that  He  is  and  that  He  is  Love.  The  more 
we  love  one  another  the  more  plainly  is  this  truth 
revealed  to  us.  Love  is  the  vital  element  of  holi- 
ness, the  spring  and  secret  of  righteousness,  and 
there  is  no  blessedness  except  in  living  and 
serving  in  the  spirit  of  Christ. 

Whatever  change  time  may  have  wrought  in 
opinions  and  in  social  conditions;  whatever 
progress  may  have  been  made  in  scientific 
knowledge ;  whatever  new  machinery,  whatever 
hitherto  unutilized  forces  may  have  been  placed 
at  the  disposition  of  man,  it  is  still  and  must 
forever  be  true  that  nothing  but  the  spirit  of 


CHARITY  AND  JUSTICE.  79 

Christian  love  can  give  us  the  power  rightly 
to  cheer,  console,  strengthen,  guide,  uplift,  il- 
lumine, and  purify  one  another.  The  money 
man  spends  on  his  lusts  and  vices  might  abolish 
poverty  and  fill  the  world  with  beauty,  but  not 
unless  it  were  administered  by  hands  of  intelli- 
gence and  love.  None  of  the  many  schemes  to 
overcome  the  misery  and  degradation  which 
spring  from  vice,  crime,  and  pauperism  can 
attain  the  end  without  the  ceaseless  aid  of  right- 
loving  men  and  women.  Love  not  only  bears 
all  things,  hopes  all  things ;  but  it  rejoices  with 
the  truth,  and  is  quick  to  discover  how  help  may 
be  given. 

Let  the  lovers  of  God  and  of  man  stand  forth, 
and  let  the  first  word  we  speak  to  them  affirm 
that  without  knowledge  and  science  and  wis- 
dom and  skill  they  can  do  little,  are  more  apt, 
with  all  their  zeal  and  fervor,  to  do  harm  than 
good.  They  do  not  love  truly  who  neglect  any 
means  whatever  whereby  they  may  make  them- 
selves more  able  to  be  of  service.  It  is  easy  to 
give  money,  but  love  cannot  be  bought,  and  the 
giving  of  money  is  not  sufficient  proof  of  love. 
Men  spend  lavishly  to  gratify  the  animal  pas- 
sions, which  are  the  destroyers  of  love. 

They  alone  love  who  take  a  personal  in- 
terest in  those  whom  they  would  benefit,  who 
reinforce  their  failing  lives,  not  with  bread 


8O  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

alone,  but  with  sympathy  and  affection,  with 
faith  and  courage,  with  joy  and  gladness.  We 
feed  domestic  animals,  but  we  are  useless  ser- 
vants if  we  do  nothing  more  than  feed  God's 
poor  who  are  our  brethren.  We  must  put  our- 
selves in  their  place.  Like  students,  we  must 
acquaint  ourselves  with  their  origins  and  en- 
vironments; like  friends,  we  must  enter  into 
their  failures  and  sorrows;  like  true  men  and 
women,  we  must  consider  that  whatever  afflicts 
them  concerns  us  also.  Love  overcomes  all, 
subdues  all  things  to  its  own  divine  purposes., 
It  makes  use  of  the  sciences  and  the  arts,  of  in- 
stitutions and  mechanical  contrivances,  to  pre- 
vent or  cure  disease,  to  mitigate  suffering,  to 
make  the  air  and  the  earth  wholesome,  to  con- 
struct and  build,  to  irrigate  and  drain,  to  im- 
prove in  all  possible  ways  the  conditions  and 
environments  of  human  life.  We  may  not  be 
able,  like  the  apostles  and  early  disciples,  to 
work  miracles,  but  centuries  of  Christian 
thought  and  endeavor  have,  as  the  Saviour 
foretold,  given  us  the  power  to  perform  even 
greater  wonders.  Knowledge  has  increased  the 
efficacy  of  faith ;  science  has  widened  the  boun- 
daries of  the  empire  of  love.  The  change  which 
has  taken  place  in  our  attitude  toward  the  crimi- 
nal is  but  an  instance  of  a  general  transfor- 
mation of  opinion  with  regard  to  all  who  are 


CHARITY  AND  JUSTICE.  8 1 

bound  by  the  chains  of  ignorance,   vice,   and 
poverty. 

We  do  not,  like  the  savage  and  the  barbarian, 
deal  with  the  violators  of  law  in  the  spirit  of 
retaliation  and  vindictiveness ;  nor  do  we  think 
it  enough  to  immure  them  and  render  them 
harmless,  but  we  hold  it  to  be  our  duty  to  re- 
form them;  and  above  all,  so  far  as  this  may 
be  possible,  we  consider  it  a  sacred  obligation 
to  do  away  with  the  causes  which  breed  crime 
and  misery.  To  do  good  to  enemies  is  now 
recognized  to  be  the  duty  of  society  not  less 
than  that  of  individuals.  We  have  come  to 
understand  that  the  real  criminal  is  often  the 
social  body  itself  rather  than  the  man  or  woman 
it  corrupts  and  then  punishes.  Here  is  an  as- 
cent into  the  world  of  reason,  mercy,  and  right- 
eousness, an  unfolding  of  the  divine  purpose 
as  made  known  by  the  Saviour,  who  revealed 
the  sovereign  nature  of  truth  and  love.  His 
influence,  more  than  all  other  causes,  has  lifted 
the  multitude  to  a  higher  plane,  where  the  spirit 
of  sympathy  and  helpfulness  breathes  unhin- 
dered. We  hold  at  least  in  theory,  however  we 
may  fall  in  practice,  that  mankind  are  a  family, 
that  both  the  Church  and  the  State  are  a  home 
where  all  should  be  cherished,  that  the  greater 
the  weakness  and  misfortune  the  greater  should 

be  the  care.    We  have  abolished  legalized  slav- 
6 


82  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

ery,  and  the  better  among  us  are  urged  as  by 
a  divine  voice  to  think  no  sacrifice  too  great 
whereby  the  condition  of  multitudes  of  toilers 
may  be  made  more  tolerable,  more  hopeful.  We 
recognize  that  the  rights  of  man  are  the  rights 
of  woman  also,  and  slowly  we  are  gaining  in- 
sight into  the  truth  that  whatever  is  wrong  for 
her  is  wrong  for  him.  As  it  is  our  duty  to  pro- 
tect children  because  they  are  weak  and  help- 
less, it  is  our  duty  to  protect  all  who  are  weak 
and  helpless.  The  young  are  by  nature  incap- 
able of  caring  for  themselves,  and  therefore  the 
home,  the  Church  and  the  State  accept  the  re- 
sponsibility of  providing  them  with  nourish- 
ment and  nurture.  The  adult  man  and  woman 
should  not  be  weak  or  ignorant  or  vicious,  and 
we  feel  that  it  is  not  their  own  fault  chiefly,  but 
the  fault  of  the  home,  the  Church  and  the  State 
if  they  are  so.  We  would  therefore  make  help- 
lessness, ignorance,  and  vice  impossible.  Reli- 
gion inspires  love,  confidence,  and  courage,  and 
science  lights  up  the  way  of  life  with  the  torch 
of  knowledge.  As  disease  is  largely  prevent- 
able, we  believe  that  vice,  pauperism,  and  crime 
are  also  preventable.  The  law  of  causation  is 
universal,  and  the  cause  being  known,  the  find- 
ing of  a  remedy  ought  to  lie  within  the  reach  of 
intelligence  and  love.  Our  progress  consists 
largely  in  the  discovery  of  remedies  for  igno- 


CHARITY  AND  JUSTICE.  83 

ranee  and  impotence.  Quinine,  drainage,  and 
sanitation  have  made  vast  regions  habitable, 
where  hitherto  healthful  life  had  been  impos- 
sible. The  discovery  of  the  causes  of  many  of 
the  worst  diseases  has  shown  us  how  they  may 
readily  be  prevented  or  cured.  The  knowledge 
of  the  causes  of  evil,  whether  physical  or  moral, 
necessarily  leads  to  the  inquiry  how  they  may 
be  suppressed  or  controlled.  The  cosmical  and 
geographical  conditions  which  interfere  with 
the  normal  development  of  human  endowments 
we  can  hardly  hope  greatly  to  modify.  In  the 
tropics  the  race  is  and  probably  will  always  be 
indolent,  ignorant,  weak,  and  sensual.  Hered- 
ity, too,  plays  a  great  part  in  the  destiny  of  each 
one.  We  are  in  mind,  as  in  body,  largely  what 
we  have  assimilated  or  what  heredity — which  is 
the  outcome  of  endless  assimilations — makes  us. 
Those  who  are  born  with  a  taint  in  the  blood, 
with  perverted  instincts  and  enfeebled  wills, 
not  only  fall  into  vice  more  easily  than  others, 
but  they  are  also  more  difficult  to  reclaim.  If 
man  shall  ever  learn  to  do  for  his  own  kind 
what  breeding  and  training  enable  him  to  do 
for  various  strains  of  domestic  animals,  he  will 
have  discovered  an  effective  means  for  prevent- 
ing crime  and  misery.  But  what  he  calls  his 
rights,  which  often  are  but  his  prejudices  and 
passions,  will  probably  continue  to  keep  him 


84  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

from  treating  his  own  species  with  the  wis- 
dom with  which  he  manages  inferior  creatures. 
Reckless  and  senseless  marriages  are  an  inex- 
haustible source  of  evil.  Many  of  our  people 
enter  into  wedlock  as  thoughtlessly  as  they  take 
a  stroll  or  fall  asleep,  and  the  result  is  quarrels, 
contentions,  divorces,  and  children  reared  in 
an  atmosphere  which  blights  their  tender  lives. 
Hence  crime  among  the  young  is  increasing  far 
more  rapidly  than  the  population  grows.  So 
long  as  this  poison  fountain  remains  open,  so 
long  will  vice  and  pauperism  continue  to  breed 
degradation  and  wretchedness.  Homes  that 
are  hells  thwart  the  wisest  efforts  to  reform 
abuses.  They  hinder  the  school,  weaken  the 
church,  and  undermine  the  social  fabric.  Our 
chaotic  and  lax  marriage  laws  encourage  and 
facilitate  imprudent  marriages,  but  the  origin 
of  the  evil  lies  deeper.  Institutions,  it  has  been 
said,  are  in  the  control  of  men;  public  opinion 
in  that  of  women.  Women  decide  how  we  shall 
build  and  furnish  our  houses,  what  we  shall  eat 
and  wear,  what  we  shall  find  beautiful  and  en- 
tertaining, where  we  shall  live,  what  we  shall 
read,  whom  we  shall  consider  friend  or  foe, 
what  beliefs  or  prejudices  we  shall  hold,  what 
religion  we  shall  have.  From  them  we  learn 
our  mother  tongue,  from  them  our  notions  of 
right  and  wrong,  of  propriety  and  justice.  If 


CHARITY  AND  JUSTICE.  85 

they  were  more  large-minded,  more  intelli- 
gent, more  unselfish,  more  serious,  more  lov- 
ing, three-fourths  of  the  depravity  and  sin 
which  make  life  a  curse  would  disappear.  The 
fountain-head  of  social  good  or  evil,  of  vice 
and  crime,  or  of  honor  and  virtue  is  in  the 
home;  and  the  wife  and  the  mother  make  or 
unmake  the  home.  Whatever  view  we  may 
take  as  to  whether  man  or  woman  was  the 
more  guilty  primal  offender,  woman  bears  the 
greater  responsibility  for  the  wrongs  and  mis- 
eries which  afflict  and  oppress  the  modern 
world,  since  the  force  of  public  opinion,  which 
is  in  her  keeping,  is  mightier  than  riches  and 
armies  and  laws.  More  than  any  age  since  the 
beginning  of  time  we  have  given  opportunity 
to  woman,  have  placed  her  in  the  seat  of  influ- 
ence and  power;  and  shall  she  prove  false,  or 
frail,  or  ungrateful,  traitorous  to  the  vast  con- 
fidence which  all  that  is  noblest  and  most  chiv- 
alrous in  man  has  led  him  to  repose  in  her? 

Doubtless  her  increasing  dominion  has  helped 
to  arouse  in  our  public  life  greater  sympathy 
and  tenderness,  a  more  complete  revulsion  from 
cruelty,  whether  to  man  or  beast.  But  more 
than  pity  we  need  justice,  which  is  the  first  and 
greatest  charity.  The  most  grievous  injustice 
which  oppresses  us,  of  which  the  weak  and  the 
poor,  the  laborers  and  their  wives  and  children, 


86  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

are  the  chief  victims,  has  its  source  in  the  politi- 
cal corruption  which  taints  our  whole  public 
life,  and  more  especially  the  conduct  of  our 
municipal  affairs.  It  not  only  stamps  upon  our 
name  a  brand  of  infamy  in  the  eyes  of  foreign 
nations;  it  disheartens  the  best  among  us,  and 
makes  reform  seem  impossible.  It  not  only  im- 
poverishes, but  it  disheartens  and  dechristian- 
izes  the  laboring  populations  of  our  cities.  It 
is  the  foe  of  civilization,  of  religion,  of  moral- 
ity; of  God  and  of  man.  It  thrives  in  the 
mephitic  air  of  saloons  and  brothels  and  gam- 
bling hells.  It  makes  the  rich  its  accomplices 
and  compels  the  respectable  to  connive  at  its 
iniquities  and  infamies.  It  perverts  the  public 
conscience,  it  destroys  the  sense  of  responsibil- 
ity, it  renders  efforts  at  reform  abortive.  In 
the  presence  of  this  moral  plague  even  the 
wisest  and  the  bravest  are  bewildered  and  dis- 
couraged. No  subject  is  more  worthy  of  the 
attention  of  those  who  are  interested  in  the  im- 
provement of  social  life  and  conditions.  Legis- 
lation can  accomplish  little  unless  it  be  supported 
by  a  more  humane,  a  more  enlightened,  a  more 
Christian  public  opinion.  Here  again,  there- 
fore, we  need  the  assistance  of  noble-minded  and 
educated  women.  If  in  the  home,  in  the  school, 
and  in  the  church,  where  woman's  influence  is 
potent,  if  not  paramount,  the  sentiment  that  cor- 


CHARITY  AND  JUSTICE.  87 

rupt  politicians  are  more  criminal  than  convicts, 
be  awakened  and  fostered,  good  will  have  been 
done.  Were  it  possible  that  the  daily  press 
should  take  a  sincere  and  serious  interest  in 
whatever  concerns  the  public  morals,  what  a 
beneficent  power  it  might  exert!  But  this  can- 
not be  hoped  for  while  the  newspaper  continues 
to  be  chiefly  a  commercial  enterprise ;  for  when 
the  primary  consideration  is  pecuniary  profit, 
it  will  be  deemed  proper  to  publish  whatever 
may  excite  curiosity,  even  though  it  pander  to 
morbid  cravings  and  prurient  propensities.  In 
the  actual  conditions,  the  machinery  and  insti- 
tutions created  to  deal  with  the  violators  of 
the  laws  are,  in  a  large  measure,  the  agencies 
whereby  vice  and  crime  are  produced  and  dif- 
fused. The  delinquents  who  are  incarcerated 
are  chiefly  the  poor,  who  had  they  money  to 
pay  the  fines  would  escape  imprisonment.  The 
heaviest  punishment  is  inflicted  on  the  most 
helpless,  and  frequently  on  the  least  guilty ;  and 
thus  the  morally  weak,  the  victims  of  unfortu- 
nate environments,  are  degraded,  hardened,  and 
made  habitual  offenders.  Nearly  one-half  of 
the  several  millions  annually  arrested  become 
chronic  criminals.  In  the  face  of  the  theory 
that  punishment  should  be  reformatory  and 
preventive,  the  fact  remains  that  in  our  hands 
it  is  still  largely  a  cause  of  corruption  and  of 


88  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

the  spread  of  vice.  Our  city  prisons  and  sta- 
tion houses  are  often  nurseries  of  crime,  and 
this  may  be  affirmed  also  of  many  of  our  county 
jails  and  poorhouses.  A  recognized  authority 
on  this  subject  has  said  that  if  there  is  an  in- 
iquity in  the  land  to-day  it  is  the  county  jail 
system ;  that  there  is  no  greater  iniquity  in  the 
world  than  the  jail  system  of  the  United  States. 
But  the  discussion  of  this  and  analogous  ques- 
tions would  carry  us  beyond  our  present  aim. 
It  is  enough  to  have  called  attention  to  the  fact 
that  it  is  the  part  of  wisdom  to  refuse  to  yield 
unreservedly  to  our  American  spirit  of  opti- 
mism. All  past  ages  when  compared  with  our 
own  were,  in  a  sense,  ages  of  ignorance,  and 
there  may  be  reasons  for  thinking  that  the  man 
of  the  future  will  place  our  century  in  the  same 
category.  A  dark  age  certainly  it  shall  be  called 
when  considered  from  the  point  of  view  of  con- 
duct, when  character  is  held  to  be  the  only  suffi- 
cient test  of  enlightenment.  The  immature  and 
the  degenerate  prefer  pleasure  to  virtue  and 
power,  and  those  who  prefer  money  to  truth 
and  love  are  also  immature  or  degenerate. 
Greed,  not  less  than  sensuality,  marks  epochs 
in  which  all  things  are  verging  toward  ruin. 
We  are  at  present  under  the  tyrannous  sway  of 
the  spirit  of  commercialism  and  expansion,  and 
our  very  thought  is  made  subservient  to  the 


CHARITY  AND  JUSTICE.  89 

ideal  of  vulgar  success;  but  those  who  have 
best  insight  have  a  fine  scorn  of  current  opin- 
ion. They  are  able  to  do  without  its  approval, 
and  they  end  by  receiving  it. 

Emerson  says  that  America  is  God's  great 
charity  to  the  race;  but  true  religion  working 
with  the  added  power  which  science  gives  is 
greater  than  America:  it  will  purify,  ennoble, 
and  transform  our  life  into  some  likeness  to  the 
divine  ideals,  which  as  yet  we  but  vaguely  dis- 
cern. We  have  already  learned  that  a  man's 
chief  value  does  not  lie  in  his  ability  to  conquer 
with  sword  and  shell,  and  we  are  coming  to 
understand  that  it  lies  just  as  little  in  his  ability 
to  manipulate  machinery  or  to  get  money. 

Comte  thinks  that  Christianity  is  the  conse- 
cration of  egoism;  and  it  is  a  fact  that  it  re- 
gards primarily  the  individual  and  asserts  the 
supreme  worth  of  personality.  But  it  also  in- 
sists that  the  individual  can  rightly  develop  and 
find  himself  only  in  devoting  his  thought  and 
life  to  the  love  and  service  of  God  and  his  fel- 
low-man. It  would  found  on  earth  a  kingdom 
of  heaven  in  which  obedience  to  the  will  of  the 
Eternal  Father  (which  is  good-will  to  man) 
shall  be  an  all-controlling  constitutional  prin- 
ciple and  law;  and  beneficence  the  universal 
means  of  personal  and  social  advancement.  We 
must  be  benefactors  that  we  may  become  able 


go  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

to  love  our  fellows,  for  if  we  incline  to  hate 
those  whom  we  wrong,  more  surely  are  we 
drawn  to  love  those  to  whom  we  do  good. 

They  who  live  with  whatsoever  things  are 
true,  just,  gracious,  pure,  and  amiable,  continue 
to  grow  in  mental  and  moral  power;  and  the 
good  of  life  lies  in  the  mental  and  moral  dispo- 
sitions which  a  spiritual  faith  and  disinterested 
conduct  create  and  foster  within  us.  As  matter 
is  but  life's  setting,  not  its  substance,  so  if  we 
would  go  to  the  succor  of  those  who  fail  in  right 
living  we  must  give  them  our  interest,  sym- 
pathy, confidence,  and  affection  more  than  our 
money.  The  special  vice  of  the  thriftless  and 
delinquent  is  heedlessness  and  recklessness.  We 
must  train  them  to  forethought,  attention,  and 
consideration ;  and  personal  influence,  not  alms- 
giving, is  the  proper  means  whereby  this  may  be 
accomplished.  If  we  would  save  them,  we  must 
save  them  from  themselves.  The  purest  charity 
consists  in  doing  the  spiritual  rather  than  in 
doing  the  corporal  works  of  mercy,  since  the 
essential  good  is  the  good  of  the  soul.  Let  us 
have  confidence  in  whatever  increases  the  power 
of  the  soul;  confidence  therefore  in  the  virtues 
of  religion,  which  are  faith,  hope,  and  love; 
confidence  in  knowledge,  science,  freedom,  and 
labor,  persuaded  that  riches  are  good  only  when 
they  are  the  possessions  of  the  wise  and  good. 


CHARITY  AND  JUSTICE.  g\ 

It  is  easier  to  be  generous  than  to  be  just.  The 
generous  win  approval,  while  the  just  are  often 
misunderstood  and  suspected  of  lack  of  heart. 
The  poor  love  the  poor  because  they  give  their 
thought  and  time  to  one  another.  They  do  not 
love  the  rich  because  the  rich  give  them  only 
money.  Mere  advice  has  little  efficacy,  for  what 
we  all  need  in  nearly  all  situations  is  not  so 
much  a  clearer  view  of  right,  as  a  more  fervent 
desire,  a  more  determined  will  to  do  right; 
and  advice  cannot  supply  this.  No  system  of 
dogma  or  morals,  however  much  it  be  preached, 
can  regenerate  the  world.  If  men  are  to  be 
converted  and  transformed,  they  must  be 
brought  close  to  Christ  himself,  must  learn  to 
know  and  love  Him,  as  St.  John  and  St.  Luke, 
St.  Francis  and  St.  Vincent  de  Paul  knew  and 
loved  Him ;  they  must  be  brought  to  believe  and 
feel  that  as  He  is  one  with  the  Father,  so  are 
we  all  verily  God's  children.  If  reason  alone 
controlled  us  the  world  would  be  a  waste.  If 
the  universe  of  metaphysics  and  of  science  were 
not  an  abstraction,  it  would  be  a  hell  where  faith, 
hope,  and  love  would  become  impossible;  for 
these  are  nourished  and  kept  alive,  not  by  specu- 
lation and  research,  but  by  unselfish  service, 
generous  deeds,  and  heroic  endeavor. 

Among   the   ancients   the   unfortunate   were 
held  to  be  accursed,  hateful  to  the  divinities,  and 


92  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR, 

consequently  without  title  to  the  pity  of  men. 
In  nothing  has  Christ  wrought  a  more  radical 
change  than  in  the  world's  attitude  toward  the 
weak  and  heavy  laden.  He  withstood  the  super- 
stition and  mercilessness  to  which  centuries  had 
given  a  kind  of  religious  sanction,  and  taught 
by  word  and  deed  that  the  more  sinful,  the  more 
ignorant,  the  more  abandoned  our  fellows  are, 
the  greater  their  claim  on  our  attention  and 
service.  His  life  and  doctrines  have  produced 
a  mighty  and  beneficent  revolution  in  their  be- 
half; and  yet  much  of  the  old  hardness  and 
injustice  still  survives  both  in  society  and  in 
innumerable  individuals  who  call  themselves 
followers  of  the  all-loving  and  all-helpful 
Saviour.  What  multitudes  there  are  who  pass 
by  and  ignore  the  misery  and  suffering  they 
cannot  but  see,  who  despise  the  poverty- 
stricken,  who  are  hard  and  bitter  toward  the 
erring;  how  many  who  imagine  they  serve 
God  by  hating  and  maligning  one  another ;  who 
are  hindrances  to  the  spread  of  the  kingdom 
for  whose  coming  they  pray!  As  when  we 
look  in  a  mirror  we  try  to  see  ourselves  in  a 
favorable  light,  so  when  by  introspection  we 
attempt  to  get  a  glimpse  of  our  inner  being, 
we  instinctively  take  the  points  of  view  which 
best  reveal  our  qualities  and  hide  our  defects. 
If  we  should  strive  honestly  to  see  ourselves 


CHARITY  AND  JUSTICE.  93 

as  we  are,  self-complacency  would  quickly  die 
within  us. 

If  we  were  true  Christians  we  should  be  able 
to  labor  for  our  fellows  with  such  confidence 
and  enthusiasm  that  nor  baseness,  nor  ingrati- 
tude, nor  faithlessness,  nor  apostasy  from  light 
and  love  of  however  many  of  those  we  seek  to 
help  would  have  power  to  cool  our  ardor  or 
diminish  our  zeal.  Though  the  world  about  us 
should  appear  to  crave  for  nothing  but  money 
and  sensation,  we  would  none  the  less  dedicate 
whatever  of  ability  God  has  given  us  to  redeem 
our  brothers  from  themselves;  and  if  in  the 
end  we  should  have  accomplished  nothing,  we 
should  at  least  have  escaped  an  ignoble  life. 

The  purest  pleasure  is  to  give  pleasure,  and 
the  highest  glory  belongs  to  those  who  labor 
earnestly,  both  by  thinking  and  by  doing,  to 
make  truth,  justice,  and  love  prevail.  The  uni- 
verse was  made  for  every  one  of  us,  and  for 
each  one  the  world  will  be  fair  and  pleasant  in 
the  degree  in  which  he  strives  to  make  it  so 
for  others.  It  is  not  possible  to  respect  one's 
self  and  to  make  no  sacrifice  for  one's  fellow- 
men.  In  coming  closer  to  one  another  to  help 
those  who  need  help,  we  shall  make  ourselves 
more  capable  of  seeing  and  confessing  the  truth 
which  the  life  and  work  and  words  of  Christ 
reveal. 


94  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

What  is  true  of  us  as  individual  men  and 
women  applies  with  equal  force  to  our  national 
life.  The  ends  to  which  as  a  people  we  are  called 
to  devote  ourselves  are  religion,  education,  jus- 
tice, and  charity.  If  we  fail  in  this,  wealth  and 
numbers  and  the  conquest  of  distant  lands  will 
have  no  power  to  save  us  from  ruin  and  shame. 
Nothing  but  a  civilization  resting  on  a  basis  of 
righteousness  and  morality  can  make  popular 
government  permanent.  If  we  are  to  look,  not 
to  the  triumphs  of  the  moment,  but  to  lasting 
results  for  which  the  whole  world  shall  be  grate- 
ful, we  must  trust  to  the  largest  thought  and  the 
purest  love;  for  so  surely  as  God  is,  so  surely 
are  they  destined  to  prevail.  Tyranny  is  the  foe 
of  liberty;  greed,  of  justice;  brute  force,  of 
mercy  and  goodness;  and  wars,  which  spring 
from  the  barbarous  passion  for  conquest,  from 
covetousness,  from  the  savage's  delight  in  vic- 
tory won  by  cunning  and  physical  strength, 
pervert  judgment,  destroy  right  feeling,  and 
foster  the  vices  which  weaken,  harden,  and  blind 
the  people,  and  lead  the  way  to  destruction. 
Unless  we  remain  sensitive  to  moral  distinctions, 
unless  we  prefer  justice  and  mercy  to  dominion 
over  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth,  we  shall  enter 
the  open  ways  along  which  the  republics  and 
empires  of  the  past  have  rushed  to  shame  and 
destruction.  If,  then,  we  love  America;  if  we 


CHARITY  AND  JUSTICE.  95 

believe  in  the  brotherhood  of  mankind,  in  equal 
opportunity  and  freedom  for  all  of  God's  chil- 
dren, let  us  turn  from  dehumanizing  greed,  from 
vainglory  and  pride,  to  follow  after  truth  and 
justice  and  love. 


V. 

WOMAN    AND   THE    CHRISTIAN    RELIGION. 

man  can  write  worthily  of  woman  who 
does  not  approach  his  subject  with  a  kind 
of  religious  reverence;  and  a  true  man  will 
ever  treat  woman,  both  in  life  and  in  litera- 
ture, not  with  justice  merely,  but  with  gener- 
ous sympathy.  Into  her  arms  we  are  born,  on 
her  breast  our  helpless  cries  are  hushed,  and 
her  hands  close  our  eyes  when  the  light  is  gone. 
Watching  her  lips,  our  own  become  vocal;  in 
her  eyes  we  read  the  mystery  of  faith,  hope, 
and  love ;  led  by  her  hand,  we  learn  to  look  up 
and  to  walk  in  the  way  of  obedience  to  law. 
We  owe  to  her,  as  mother,  as  sister,  as  wife, 
as  friend,  the  tenderest  emotions  of  life,  the 
purest  aspirations  of  the  soul,  the  noblest  ele- 
ments of  character,  and  the  completest  sym- 
pathy in  all  our  joy  and  sorrow.  She  weaves 
flowers  of  heaven  into  the  vesture  of  earthly 
life.  In  poetry,  painting,  sculpture,  and  reli- 
gion, she  gives  us  ideals  of  the  fair  and  beau- 
tiful. Innocence  is  a  woman,  chastity  is  a 


WOMAN  AND    THE   CHRISTIAN  RELIGION.     97 

woman,  charity  is  a  woman.  And  yet,  true  as 
all  this  is  and  is  felt  to  be  throughout  Christen- 
dom, such  views  and  sentiments,  when  consid- 
ered in  the  light  of  history,  seem  to  be  little  less 
than  absurd.  The  poets  have  sung  divinely  of 
woman,  but  man  has  treated  her  inhumanly. 
At  the  origin  of  society  she  is  everywhere  a 
drudge,  a  slave,  a  chattel.  Among  the  Baby- 
lonians, we  know  from  Herodotus,  it  was  the 
custom  to  offer  women  for  sale  to  the  highest 
bidder,  and  every  woman  was  required,  at  least 
for  a  time,  to  put  a  price  on  her  virtue.  With 
the  Lydians  this  was  a  universal  practice.  The 
Syrians,  to  the  immolation  of  children  to  idols, 
joined  the  compulsory  sacrifice  of  woman's 
honor.  Strabo  affirms  that  even  the  most 
distinguished  families  among  the  Armenians 
presented  their  daughters  to  the  goddess  of  de- 
bauch in  the  temple  of  Anaitis;  and  the  same 
writer  tells  us  that  a  law  of  the  Medes  required 
every  man  to  have  not  less  than  seven  wives. 
That  polygamy  and  infanticide  were  common 
among  the  Persians  is  a  fact  to  which  Herodo- 
tus testifies,  who  also  says  that  the  Scythians 
were  promiscuous  in  their  relations  with  women, 
were  conjugal  despots,  and  immolated  widows 
on  the  graves  of  their  husbands.  And  Strabo 
asserts  that  the  ancient  Hindoos  bought  their 
wives,  treated  them  as  slaves,  and  burned  them 

7 


98  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

when  their  husbands  died.  Among  the  Mon- 
gols, community  of  women  was  consecrated 
both  by  law  and  custom.  In  Egypt,  Diodorus 
tells  us,  unlimited  polygamy  was  lawful  to  all 
except  the  priests;  and  the  support  of  the 
family,  by  the  rudest  labors,  and  often  by  the 
sale  of  virtue,  devolved  upon  woman,  while 
the  men  stayed  at  home  to  nurse  and  knit.  In 
Greece  woman  held  a  less  degraded  position. 
She  was  not  the  slave  of  her  husband,  but,  with 
the  exception  of  a  certain  class  of  public  women, 
she  was  reared  in  ignorance  and  confined  to  the 
nursing  of  children  and  to  domestic  drudgery. 
When  her  husband  entertained  his  friends,  she 
was  not  permitted  to  sit  at  table.  The  Grecian 
view  of  marriage  is  physico-political.  Even  in 
the  heroic  epoch  of  Homer,  there  is  no  trace 
of  the  sentiment  of  love  as  it  is  known  to  us.  Of 
the  many  suitors  of  Penelope,  not  one  seeks  to 
render  himself  worthy  of  her  love.  The  famous 
passage  in  which  Homer  describes  the  parting 
of  Hector  from  Andromache,  depicts  the  great 
hero's  concern  for  his  son,  rather  than  for  his 
wife;  and  Andromache  is  embraced  by  Pyr- 
rhus,  the  son  of  the  slayer  of  her  husband. 
Menelaus  takes  Helen  back  in  complete  indif- 
ference, after  she  had  lived  ten  years  with  Paris. 
Telemachus  rudely  tells  his  mother  to  go  back 
to  her  spinning-wheel,  and  that  to  speak  among 


WOMAN  AND   THE   CHRISTIAN  RELIGION.     99 

men  belongs  only  to  man.  The  husband  bought 
his  wife,  and  the  woman  taken  captive  was  re- 
duced to  slavery  and  sold  as  a  chattel.  Woman's 
work  in  the  Homeric  period  was  to  draw  water, 
to  wash,  to  grind  corn,  to  make  the  fire,  and  to 
perform  all  the  most  menial  and  even  indecent 
labors  for  men.  Hesiod,  who  probably  belongs 
to  this  period,  calls  women  "  an  accursed  brood, 
and  the  chief  scourge  of  the  human  race."  And 
^Eschylus,  at  a  later  date,  declares  that  woman 
is  the  direst  scourge  both  of  the  State  and  the 
home.  The  daily  prayer  of  Socrates  was  a 
thanksgiving  to  the  gods  that  he  had  been  born 
neither  a  slave  nor  a  woman;  and  Aristotle 
teaches  that  woman  is  by  nature  the  inferior  of 
man.  Plato,  in  his  "  Republic/'  takes  a  purely 
political  view  of  woman,  and  would  have  the 
propagation  of  the  human  race  made  subject  to 
the  principles  that  guide  stock-raisers  in  the 
breeding  of  animals.  In  the  historical  age  of 
Greece,  a  slight  improvement  in  the  legal  posi- 
tion of  woman  was  accompanied  by  her  social 
degradation.  Virtuous  women  were  kept  in 
ignorance  and  seclusion,  and  the  place  of  honor 
was  given  to  courtesans.  The  companionship 
of  Socrates  and  Theodota,  and  Plato's  presence 
in  the  house  of  Aspasia,  without  even  the  re- 
motest suspicion  that  such  a  state  of  affairs  was 
reprehensible,  make  it  unnecessary  to  use  other 


100  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

arguments  to  show  the  ineffable  degradation  to 
which  woman  had  been  brought  in  the  most 
brilliant  epoch  of  Grecian  civilization. 

In  the  earliest  days  the  Romans  bought  or 
captured  their  wives ;  and  women  were  not  per- 
mitted to  own  or  inherit  property.  Romulus 
gave  the  husband  absolute  authority  over  the 
wife,  even  to  the  right  of  life  and  death.  Eg- 
nacius  Menecius  was  scarcely  blamed  for  kill- 
ing his  wife,  though  she  had  been  guilty  of 
nothing  more  grievous  than  merely  tasting 
wine.  "  Slacken  the  rein,"  said  Cato,  speak- 
ing of  woman,  "and  you  will  afterwards  strive 
in  vain  to  check  the  mad  career  of  that  unrea- 
soning animal."  The  Romans  habitually  con- 
trasted the  majesty  of  man  (majestas  virorum) 
with  the  imbecility,  frivolity,  and  weakness  of 
woman  (sexus  imbecillis,  levis,  impar  labori- 
bus}.  As  they  drowned  weak  and  deformed 
children,  so  they  treated  woman  as  an  inferior 
and  a  slave.  In  Rome,  as  in  Greece,  as  the 
laws  were  made  more  just  to  woman,  her  moral 
and  social  degradation  was  intensified.  There 
is  nothing  sadder  in  human  history  than  the 
condition  of  women  during  the  decline  of  the 
Roman  State.  A  depravity  of  which  it  is  im- 
possible to  speak  without  becoming  indelicate 
grew  like  a  leprosy  into  the  lives  of  women  of 
every  class,  until,  as  Plutarch  says,  they  seemed 


WOMAN  AND    THE   CHRISTIAN  RELIGION.     IOI 

to  have  been  born  only  for  luxury  and  sensual- 
ity. Asiatic  slaves  of  surpassing  beauty  were 
introduced  into  every  patrician  house,  and 
Roman  matrons,  throwing  aside  even  the  ap- 
pearance of  decency,  delivered  themselves  up 
to  the  most  revolting  vice.  Seneca  says,  "They 
vied  with  men  in  licentiousness."  There  was  a 
universal  aversion  to  marriage,  and  a  weariness 
of  life  itself.  The  Roman  Empire  had  become 
a  slough  of  blood  and  filth. 

If  we  turn  to  the  barbarous  populations  from 
which  the  modern  Christian  nations  have  been 
developed,  we  find  no  marked  change  for  the 
better  in  the  condition  of  woman.  Certain 
authors,  in  their  zeal  to  deny  all  beneficent  in- 
fluence to  the  Christian  religion,  have  sought 
to  make  it  appear  that  the  present  position  of 
women  in  the  civilized  world  is,  in  a  great 
measure,  to  be  ascribed  to  the  reverence  in 
which  it  is  supposed  woman  was  held  by  the 
Teutonic  tribes  that  on  the  downfall  of  the 
Roman  Empire  gained  control  of  a  large  part 
of  Europe.  They  form  this  opinion  upon  in- 
formation derived  from  Tacitus,  who,  in  his 
account  of  the  manners  and  customs  of  the 
Germans,  says: 

"  They  think  there  is  in  women  something  holy 
and  prophetical ;  they  do  not  despise  their  counsels, 
and  they  listen  to  their  predictions.  In  the  time  of 


IO2  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

the  divine  Vespasian  we  have  seen  the  greater  part 
of  them  regard  Velleda  as  a  goddess." 

But  Tacitus  here  alludes  manifestly  to  a 
superstitious  belief  in  woman  as  a  sorceress 
and  prophetess,  and  any  conclusions  that  we 
may  attempt  to  draw  from  his  words  as  to 
woman's  social  position  among  these  barbar- 
ous tribes  must  be  valueless.  Similar  beliefs 
and  analogous  customs,  as  Guizot  has  remarked, 
have  existed  among  many  savage  and  barbar- 
ous peoples.  Tacitus,  indeed,  expressly  says  in 
another  passage,  that  the  authority  of  Velleda 
was  due  to  a  superstition  among  the  Germans 
that  led  them  to  look  upon  many  women  as 
prophetesses;  and  the  witchcraft  of  the  middle 
ages,  and  even  that  of  New  England,  at  a  later 
day,  for  which  Christianity  has  been  held  ac- 
countable, was  the  survival  of  an  ancient  pagan 
superstition,  which  it  required  centuries  to  erase 
from  the  popular  imagination.  It  must  be  borne 
in  mind,  too,  that  Tacitus  had  never  crossed  the 
Rhine,  and  that  his  knowledge  of  the  social 
customs  of  the  barbarians  was  derived  from 
others,  whose  accounts  may  or  may  not  have 
been  trustworthy.  Again,  Tacitus  wrote  in  the 
mephitic  air  of  Roman  corruption,  and  the  in- 
dignation with  which  the  moral  degradation  of 
his  countrymen  filled  him  must  have  led  him  to 


WOMAN  AND    THE   CHRISTIAN  RELIGION.     103 

paint  in  brighter  colors  the  life  of  barbarians 
who  could  not  have  been  so  depraved  as  the 
civilized  men  whom  he  knew.  We  know,  at  all 
events,  that  the  lot  of  woman  among  the  Teu- 
tonic tribes  was  what  it  has  always  been  among 
barbarous  peoples.  The  slayer  of  a  woman  cap- 
able of  bearing  children  was  made  to  pay  a  fine 
of  about  six  dollars;  if  she  was  too  young  or 
too  old  to  become  a  mother,  the  fine  was  put  at 
two  dollars.  It  is  the  old  Greek  view,  in  which 
woman  is  valuable  because  without  her  it  is  not 
possible  to  have  man.  The  husband  bought  his 
wife,  and  if  she  became  unfaithful  he  drove 
her  with  rods  through  the  village  in  a  state  of 
nudity.  The  sentiment  of  modesty  and  holy 
shame,  which  is  so  essential  a  part  of  Christian 
reverence  for  woman,  could  hardly  have  existed 
among  these  populations,  since  we  know  from 
Tacitus  that  custom  permitted  the  men  and 
women  to  bathe  promiscuously.  Polygamy  was 
conceded  in  principle,  since  kings  and  nobles 
were  permitted  to  have  several  wives.  "  A 
slave,"  says  Strabo,  "  woman  was  compelled  to 
toil  for  her  husband  during  his  life,  and  at  his 
death  she  was  immolated  on  his  grave,  that  she 
might  continue  to  serve  him  in  another  world." 
Among  the  other  barbarous  peoples  of  Europe, 
woman's  lot  was  still  more  deplorable.  Caesar's 
account  of  the  tribes  that  inhabited  England 


104  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

gives  us  an  insight  into  a  state  of  depravity  to 
which  history  can  hardly  furnish  a  parallel. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  account  for  this  world- 
wide inhumanity  of  man  to  woman.  Through- 
out all  pre-Christian  history  the  law  of  superior 
strength  was  the  rule  of  conduct.  The  strong- 
est governed,  and  governed  in  virtue  of  their 
strength,  and  not  in  virtue  of  any  moral  sanc- 
tion or  divine  authority. 

This  is  at  all  times  true  of  savage  and  barbar- 
ous hordes ;  and  it  is,  in  a  general  way,  true  of 
the  pagan  States  of  Greece  and  Rome.  The 
notion  that  man  has  duties  to  his  fellow-man, 
even  though  he  be  wholly  in  his  power,  did  not 
enter  into  the  view  of  human  life.  Captives, 
therefore,  might  be  put  to  death,  or  reduced  to 
a  state  of  slavery  worse  than  death.  The  slave 
was  a  chattel;  the  master  was  free  to  treat 
him  as  he  treated  his  ass  or  his  dog.  Among 
pagans,  the  later  stoics  were  the  first  to  teach 
that  masters  are  bound  by  ties  of  moral  obliga- 
tion to  their  slaves,  and  how  far  these  views 
may  have  been  the  result  of  Christian  influ- 
ences it  is  not  easy  to  determine.  When 
strength  is  made  the  measure  of  right,  woman 
is  inevitably  driven  to  the  wall.  Nature,  in 
making  her  a  mother,  makes  her  weak  —  takes 
a  part  of  her  blood,  her  mind,  and  her  heart  to 
give  it  to  another.  Child-bearing  and  child- 


WOMAN  AND    THE    CHRISTIAN  RELIGION.     105 

rearing  place  her  at  a  disadvantage.  Were  she 
even  physically  stronger  and  mentally  more 
capable  than  man,  the  infirmities  and  the  duties 
inseparable  from  her  sex  would  make  it  im- 
possible for  her  to  cope  with  him  in  the  life- 
struggle.  Hence,  wherever  the  law  of  strength 
has  been  accepted  as  the  rule  of  life,  man  has 
treated  woman  as  Petruchio  proposed  to  treat 
Katherina : 

"  I  will  be  master  of  what  is  mine  own, 
She  is  my  goods,  my  chattels  ;  she  is  my  house, 
My  household  stuff,  my  field,  my  barn, 
My  horse,  my  ox,  my  ass,  my  anything." 

The  savage  went  wife  hunting,  as  he  went  wolf 
or  bear  hunting,  and  brought  the  captive  home 
to  be  his  slave.  The  barbarian,  too,  captured 
his  woman  in  war,  or  bought  her.  The  civi- 
lized pagan  was  a  polygamist,  or  at  least  looked 
upon  himself  as  wholly  free  from  all  obliga- 
tions of  marital  fidelity. 

If  this  is,  in  general  outlines,  the  history  of 
woman  except  in  Christendom,  it  is  pertinent 
to  ask  whether  the  Christian  religion  bears  any 
causal  relation  to  her  actual  position  in  the  civi- 
lized world.  When  Christ  came,  woman,  like 
the  slave,  was  everywhere  without  honor,  with- 
out freedom,  without  hope.  Men,  bearing  the 
curse  of  their  own  depravity,  sank  into  the 


106  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

depths  of  moral  infamy  to  which  they  had  re- 
duced the  poor  and  the  weak.  Surrounded  by 
human  herds  to  whom  vice  in  its  most  degrad- 
ing forms  had  become  a  second  nature,  they 
breathed  an  atmosphere  of  corruption,  in  which 
the  moral  sense  perished.  Life  grew  to  be  a 
kind  of  remittent  fever  alternating  between  lust 
and  blood.  Here  and  there  a  stray  voice  pro- 
tested, but  only  in  tones  of  despair.  The  masses 
of  mankind  —  the  slave  and  the  woman  —  had 
been  reduced  to  a  state  so  pitiable  that  possibly 
nothing  short  of  the  coming  of  God  himself,  in 
sorrow  and  in  weakness,  could  have  inspired 
the  courage  even  to  dream  of  better  things. 
Hope  had  fled;  the  world  was  prostrate;  in 
the  mephitic  air  of  unnatural  sensual  indul- 
gence the  soul  was  stifled;  woman  had  lost 
even  the  attractiveness  of  sex,  and  a  thousand 
slaves  could  hardly  feed  the  stomach  of  Dives. 
To  such  a  world  Jesus  Christ  came,  and  took 
Lazarus  in  His  arms,  and  called  upon  all  who 
believed  in  God  to  follow  Him  in  the  service  of 
outraged  humanity.  Before  any  moral  progress 
could  be  hoped  for,  new  ideas  had  to  be  grafted 
in  the  human  mind,  ideas  as  to  what  man  is  in 
himself,  as  to  what  is  due  to  him  in  virtue  of 
his  very  nature;  new  doctrines  concerning  the 
duties  of  all  men  to  all  men,  and  especially  of 
the  strong  to  the  weak,  of  the  rich  to  the  poor, 


WOMAN  AND    THE   CHRISTIAN  RELIGION.     IO/ 

of  man  to  woman.  Christ  sees  the  soul.  The 
soul  determines  the  value  of  human  life,  and 
the  soul  of  the  child,  of  the  slave,  of  woman,  is 
as  sacred  as  the  soul  of  Caesar.  "  There  is 
neither  Jew  nor  Greek;  there  is  neither  bond 
nor  free ;  there  is  neither  male  nor  female.  For 
you  are  all  one  in  Christ  Jesus."  That  which 
is  supreme  in  Christ  is  love.  He  pours  the 
boundless  love  of  God  into  the  channels  in 
which  human  life  flows.  In  His  presence  up- 
glows  the  purest,  the  strongest,  the  most  un- 
quenchable love  that  exists  or  has  existed  on 
earth;  and  He  turns  this  stream  of  divine 
charity  into  the  desert  of  human  wretchedness 
and  woe,  to  refresh  and  gladden  the  hearts  of 
the  poor  and  the  forlorn,  of  the  slave  and  the 
beggar,  and  of  woman,  the  great  outcast  of 
humanity.  He  sends  those  who  love  Him  to 
feed  the  hungry,  to  give  drink  to  the  thirsty,  to 
clothe  the  naked,  to  ransom  the  captive,  to  visit 
the  sick.  Wherever  a  human  being  suffers 
wrong  or  want,  there  is  Christ  to  be  loved  and 
to  be  served.  Homer  is  not  so  much  the  father 
of  all  our  poetry,  nor  Socrates  so  much  the 
master  of  all  our  intellectual  discipline,  as  is 
Christ  the  fountain-head  of  the  humanitarian 
love  that  makes  men  helpful  to  the  weak  and 
the  wronged.  In  lifting  the  soul  into  the  full 
light  of  God's  presence,  He  not  only  gave  a  new 


IO8  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

measure  of  the  value  of  life,  but  a  new  meaning 
to  authority.  The  supremacy  of  force  is  sup- 
planted by  the  supremacy  of  truth  and  justice, 
of  love  and  mercy.  Slaves  and  beggars  will 
now  appeal  from  emperors  and  senates  to  God, 
in  the  name  of  the  soul,  redeemed  by  Christ. 
Henceforth,  to  be  man  is  to  be  God-like;  to  be 
an  emperor  is  to  be  human.  In  the  light  of 
this  truth,  woman  becomes  the  equal  of  man. 
Hence  polygamy  is  abolished,  and  marriage  is 
of  one  with  one,  and  for  life.  Wedded  love 
becomes  sacramental  love,  and  the  tenderness 
with  which  Christ  loves  His  Church  becomes  the 
symbol  of  the  love  of  husband  for  wife.  "  He 
that  loveth  his  wife/'  says  St.  Paul,  "  loveth 
himself.  For  no  man  ever  hated  his  own  flesh, 
but  nourisheth  and  cherisheth  it,  as  also  Christ 
doth  his  Church."  Thus  the  family  becomes  a 
lesser  church,  the  home  a  sanctuary,  and  woman 
is  God's  providence,  sitting  by  each  man's 
hearth-fire.  Eve  withdraws,  and  the  Virgin 
Mother  is  made  the  ideal  woman.  No  Amazon 
here,  no  Spartan  mother,  no  stern  mother  of 
the  Gracchi,  no  goddess  of  sensual  love,  no  fair 
slave  of  man's  animal  appetites;  but  woman, 
pure,  gentle,  tender,  loving,  patient,  strong;  the 
world's  benefactress,  because,  through  her,  di- 
vine manhood  lives  on  earth,  and  peace,  love, 
mercy,  and  righteousness  prevail.  With  this 


WOMAN  AND    THE   CHRISTIAN  RELIGION.     IOQ 

new  ideal  of  womanhood,  the  exaltation  of  the 
beauty  and  moral  worth  of  perfect  chastity  is 
intimately  associated.  The  selfishness  of  man, 
which  is  chiefly  shown  in  the  indulgence  of 
his  sensual  passions,  is  woman's  most  terrible 
enemy.  Love  is  pure  and  gentle;-  lust  is  coarse 
and  brutal.  Love  is  born  of  the  soul,  and  not 
of  the  senses;  and  when  this  celestial  flower 
first  blooms  under  the  eyes  of  a  pure  youth  and 
a  fair  maiden,  they  are  lifted  to  infinite  heights, 
and  the  sad  side  of  love  is  the  disenchantment 
that  comes  when  they  are  awakened  from  their 
dream.  Nothing  tends  more  to  exalt  the  pas- 
sion of  pure  love  than  reverence  for  virginity, 
real  belief  in  the  sacredness  of  womanly 
virtue.  Those  only  are  worthy  of  the  love  of 
woman  who,  like  King  Arthur's  knights,  bind 
themselves  — 

"  To  lead  sweet  lives  in  purest  chastity, 
To  love  one  maiden  only,  cleave  to  her, 
And  worship  her  by  years  of  noble  deeds." 

This  exaltation  of  perfect  chastity  is  the  most 
emphatic  assertion  of  the  truth  that  woman  does 
not  exist  simply  for  man;  that  the  sphere  of 
her  activity  is  not  bounded  by  the  duties  of  wife 
and  mother.  She  may  love  Jesus  Christ,  and, 
with  no  man  for  her  husband,  become  a  minis- 
tering angel  of  light  and  love  to  the  wide  world. 


110  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

Purity,  meekness,  patience,  faith,  and  love  — 
which  are  the  virtues  that  our  blessed  Lord 
most  emphasizes  —  are,  above  all,  womanly  vir- 
tues. He  does  not  exalt  intellect,  courage,  and 
strength,  but  gentleness,  and  lovingness,  and 
helpfulness.  The  Christian  hero  even,  like  all 
heroines,  shows  his  supreme  strength  in  suffer- 
ing rather  than  in  doing.  To  the  most  wretched 
phase  even  of  woman's  existence  the  Saviour 
has  brought  the  healing  of  His  heavenly  grace. 
In  all  literature,  sacred  and  profane,  there  is 
nothing  so  touching,  so  tender  and  consoling, 
as  the  Gospel  episode  of  Magdalene;  and  he 
who  looks  with  more  complacency  upon  Aspasia 
with  Plato  at  her  feet  than  upon  Magdalene  at 
the  feet  of  Jesus  is  self-condemned.  If  we  take 
a  view  of  Christian  history  in  the  light  of  the 
ideals  that  Christ  has  given  us,  there  is,  of 
course,  disappointment.  The  ideal  never  be- 
comes real  in  this  earthly  existence,  and  since 
even  the  best  reach  not  these  heights,  the  multi- 
tude, of  course,  remain  far  below.  Ideals  are 
like  the  mountain-peaks  that  gleam  amid  the 
azure  heavens;  we  look  up  to  them  with  de- 
light, but  the  ascent  wearies,  and  when  on  the 
summit  we  find  the  air  too  fine  for  our  coarse 
breathing,  and  in  the  solitude  we  miss  the  crowd 
and  grow  lonely.  Nevertheless,  on  these  snow- 
capped heights  are  born  the  spring  showers  and 


WOMAN  AND    THE   CHRISTIAN  RELIGION.     1 1 1 

the  summer  rains,  which  nourish  the  growing 
corn  and  the  ripening  grain.  But  if  Christian 
society  has  not  realized  its  ideals  concerning 
woman,  it  has  never  been  without  their  elevating 
and  refining  influence.  To  the  action  of  the 
Church  in  the  middle  ages  we  are  indebted  for 
the  monogamic  family,  which  lies  at  the  basis 
of  our  civilization  and  is  the  stronghold  of  all 
that  is  best  in  our  social  life.  Had  not  popes 
and  bishops  withstood  kings  and  barons  when 
they  sought  to  continue  the  polygamous  prac- 
tices that  among  the  German  barbarians  were 
lawful,  monogamy  would  have  perished  among 
the  ruling  classes  of  Europe;  and  with  the 
development  of  popular  power,  had  such  devel- 
opment then  been  possible,  woman  would  have 
fallen  to  the  place  that  she  to-day  occupies  in 
Mohammedan  countries.  Indeed,  the  preserva- 
tion of  all  western  Europe  from  the  blight  of 
Mohammedanism  is  due  to  the  action  of  the 
Church,  which  united  and  was  alone  able  to 
unite  the  warring  factions  of  western  semi- 
barbarians,  and  to  hurl  them,  century  after  cen- 
tury, against  the  strongholds  of  the  hordes 
whose  dream  of  heaven  was  a  place  of  sensual 
delights. 

The  objection  has  often  been  urged,  that  in 
making  man  the  head  of  the  family  the  Church 
is  unjust  to  woman.  But  the  family  is  an  or- 


112  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

ganic  unity,  and  cannot  exist  without  subordi- 
nation and  authority.  Either  the  husband  or  the 
wife  must  be  the  depository  of  domestic  author- 
ity, and  unless  it  can  be  shown  that  woman  is 
better  fitted  than  man  to  exercise  this  power,  no 
injustice  has  been  done.  Physically  man  is 
stronger  than  woman;  he  is  better  able  to  con- 
front the  world  and  to  do  the  work  by  which  the 
members  of  the  family  are  maintained  in  health 
and  comfort.  Historically,  society  grows  out 
of  a  warlike  and  barbarous  state  of  life;  and 
since  women  are  less  fitted  for  war  than  men, 
the  defense  of  property  and  rights  is  naturally 
intrusted  to  those  whose  hands  hold  the  sword. 
But  it  is  not  necessary  to  examine  into  the 
genesis  and  evolution  of  society  to  find  reasons 
for  giving  the  headship  of  the  family  to  man; 
we  need  but  look  into  the  heart  of  woman  to  see 
there  an  impulse  as  strong  as  life  to  look  up  to 
and  follow  the  man  she  loves.  Between  man 
and  woman  there  ought  to  be  no  question  of 
superiority  or  inferiority;  they  are  unlike,  and 
in  nothing  do  they  differ  more  than  in  their 
relative  power  to  escape  from  their  impressions. 
A  woman  understands  only  what  she  feels, 
whereas  a  man  may  grow  to  be  able  to  look  at 
things  as  they  are  in  themselves,  remaining  the 
while  indifferent  to  their  relations  to  himself. 
Hence  women  are  superior  to  men  in  those  vir- 


WOMAN  AND    THE   CHRISTIAN  RELIGION.     113 

tues  in  which  the  essential  element  is  right 
feeling.  They  believe  more,  hope  more,  and 
love  more  than  men.  They  are  more  compas- 
sionate, more  capable  of  remaining  faithful  to 
those  who  are  unworthy  of  their  love,  because 
they  consider  only  the  love  they  feel,  and  give 
comparatively  little  heed  to  its  object.  Men,  on 
the  other  hand,  are  superior  in  the  virtues  that 
spring  less  from  sentiment  and  depend  rather 
on  the  nature  of  things,  —  their  eternal  fitness, 
— as  justice,  fortitude,  equanimity,  wisdom,  pru- 
dence. This  difference  in  character  determines 
their  position  in  domestic  and  social  relations; 
nor  would  there  be  gain  for  either  man  or 
woman  if  they  could  be  made  less  unlike.  The 
charm,  as  well  as  the  helpfulness,  of  their  rela- 
tions lies  in  their  differences,  and  not  in  their 
likenesses.  They  are  complementary;  each 
needs  the  qualities  of  the  other,  and  their  wants 
are  the  bond  of  union.  The  opposition  of  men 
and  women  to  so-called  woman's  rights  comes, 
doubtless,  in  many  instances  from  a  belief  that 
to  throw  woman  into  public  life  is  to  make  her 
less  womanly.  Nor  gods  nor  men  love  a  man- 
nish woman  or  a  womanish  man.  The  un- 
fairness with  which  woman  is  treated  in  the 
legislation  of  the  mediaeval  epoch  may  be  traced 
to  the  barbarous  ideas  concerning  woman  that 

partially  survived  in  Europe  centuries  after  our 
8 


1 14  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

ancestors  had  been  converted  to  Christianity; 
nor  has  this  injustice  even  yet  disappeared  from 
the  statute-books  of  the  civilized  nations.  The 
causes  that  have  led  to  the  improvement  of 
.woman's  condition  among  the  Christian  nations 
are,  in  general,  the  same  that  have  developed 
our  civilization.  Whatever  influences  have  been 
active  in  the  abolition  of  slavery,  in  securing 
popular  rights,  free  government,  protection  for 
children  and  the  poor,  in  bringing  knowledge 
within  the  reach  of  all,  and  thereby  spreading 
abroad  juster  and  more  humane  principles  of 
conduct,  have  also  wrought  for  the  welfare  of 
woman ;  and  it  is  not  necessary  to  point  out  how 
intimately  all  this  progress  is  associated  with 
the  social  action  of  the  Christian  religion.  The 
spirit  of  chivalry  is  the  outgrowth  of  the  Chris- 
tian ideal  of  womanhood.  To  maintain  that 
Christianity  crushed  out  "  the  feminine  element, 
and,  more  than  all  other  influences  combined, 
plunged  the  world  into  the  dark  ages/'  is  to 
indulge  in  a  kind  of  declamation  that,  for  the 
past  half-century  at  least,  has  become  impossible 
to  enlightened  minds.  To  say  that  the  doctrine 
of  original  sin  throws  the  guilt  exclusively  or 
chiefly  on  woman,  is  merely  to  affirm  one's  igno- 
rance of  Christian  teaching.  St.  Ambrose,  one 
of  the  four  great  doctors  of  the  Western  Church, 
declares  that  woman's  fault  in  the  original  fall 


WOMAN  AND    THE   CHRISTIAN  RELIGION.     115 

was  less  than  that  of  man,  as  her  bearing  was 
beyond  question  more  generous.  And  then  the 
Catholic  Church  at  least  teaches  that  Mary  has 
more  than  made  good  any  wrong  that  Eve  may 
have  done.  To  assert  that  in  the  Christian  reli- 
gion "  the  godhead  is  a  trinity  of  males  "  is  to 
be  at  once  ignorant  and  coarse.  God  is  neither 
male  nor  female,  as  in  Christ  there  is  neither 
male  nor  female.  To  proclaim  that  the  Chris- 
tian religion  teaches  that  "  woman  is  an  after- 
thought in  creation,  sex  a  crime,  marriage  a 
condition  of  slavery  for  woman  and  defilement 
for  man,  and  maternity  a  curse/'  is  to  mistake 
rant  for  reason,  declamation  for  argument.  In 
fact,  the  advocates  of  woman's  rights  too  often 
take  this  false  and  therefore  offensive  tone. 
They  speak  like  people  who  have  grievances ;  and 
to  have  a  grievance  is  to  be  a  bore.  They  scold ; 
and  when  women  scold,  whether  in  public  or  in 
private,  men  may  not  be  able  to  answer  them, 
but  they  grow  sullen  and  cease  to  be  helpful. 
To  be  persuasive,  woman  must  be  amiable ;  and 
to  be  strong,  she  must  speak  from  a  loving  heart, 
and  not  from  a  sour  mind.  Whoever  is  thor- 
oughly imbued  with  the  spirit  of  Christianity 
must  sympathize  with  all  movements  having  as 
their  object  the  giving  to  woman  the  full  pos- 
session of  her  rights.  No  law  that  is  unjust  to 
her  should  exist  in  Christendom.  She  should 


Il6  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

not  be  shut  out  from  any  career  that  offers  to 
her  the  means  of  an  honest  livelihood.  For  the 
same  work  she  should  receive  the  same  wages 
as  a  man,  and  should  hold  her  property  in  virtue 
of  the  same  right  that  secures  to  him  the  pos- 
session of  his  own.  For  wrong-doing  of  what- 
ever kind  she  should  not  be  made  to  suffer  a 
severer  punishment  than  is  inflicted  upon  man. 
The  world  will  continue  to  be  unjust  to  her 
until  public  opinion  makes  the  impure  man  as 
odious  as  it  makes  the  impure  woman. 

The  best  interests  of  mankind,  of  the  Church 
and  the  State,  will  be  served  by  widening  and 
strengthening  woman's  influence.  The  ancient 
civilization  perished  because  woman  was  de- 
graded, and  ours  will  be  perpetuated  by  a  pure, 
believing,  self-reverent,  and  enlightened  woman- 
hood. Woman  here  in  the  United  States  is 
more  religious,  more  moral,  and  more  intelli- 
gent than  man ;  more  intelligent  in  the  sense  of 
greater  openness  to  ideas,  greater  flexibility  of 
mind,  and  a  wider  acquaintance  with  literature ; 
and  whatever  is  really  good  for  her  must  be 
good  for  our  religion  and  civilization.  She 
"  stays  all  the  fair  young  planet  in  her  hands." 


VI. 

EMOTION   AND  TRUTH. 

[Address  delivered  on  the  twenty-fifth  anniversary  of  the 
establishment  of  the  diocese  of  Peoria.] 

TT7HATEVER  stirs  emotion  disturbs  judg- 
ment. This  most  beautiful  May  time,  a 
great  concourse  of  people,  a  throng  of  bishops 
and  priests  in  symbolic  vesture ;  music,  pleading 
for  power  to  utter  the  thought  and  love  of  the 
Eternal,  or  bursting  forth  in  swelling  volumes 
of  sound  that  roll  and  rise,  borne  on  viewless 
wings,  to  the  throne  of  God;  rites  and  cere- 
monies, hallowed  by  association  with  the  divin- 
est  faith  and  the  noblest  memories,  with  the 
heroic  sufferings  and  triumphs  of  millions  of 
men  and  women  —  the  fine  flower  and  fruit  of 
humanity  —  who  century  after  century  for  more 
than  fifty  generations  have  taken  their  stand  on 
the  world-wide  battlefield,  steadfast  until  swal- 
lowed in  the  vortices  of  visible  things,  to  re-live 
in  the  ever-enduring  universe  of  pure  spirits  — 
all  this  exalts  the  imagination  and  lifts  to 
spheres  where  feeling  is  spontaneous  and  delib- 
eration difficult. 


Il8  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

For  most  of  us  who  are  gathered  here  the 
day  itself  brings  recollections  which  for  each  one 
are  tender  and  moving,  as  with  varying  shade 
and  circumstance  they  twine  around  the  found- 
ing of  parishes,  the  building  of  churches  and 
schools  and  homes  of  mercy  and  beneficence, 
that  in  more  than  a  hundred  towns  and  villages, 
and  on  wide  prairies  amid  the  growing  corn  and 
the  ripening  harvest,  have  risen  at  the  call  of 
faith  and  at  the  promptings  of  a  generosity  that 
seems  to  annul  selfish  impulse,  so  long  as  there 
is  good  to  be  done  —  recollections  of  youthful 
courage,  high  hope,  and  pertinacious  labor  un- 
dertaken for  what  each  one  believed  to  be  most 
divine,  and  endured  for  the  love  of  what  is 
holiest.  It  is  inevitable,  therefore,  that  emotions 
swell  within  us,  which  dispose  us  to  accept  as 
truth  words  which  sober  reason  is  reluctant  to 
approve.  But  best  reason  rests  in  Love,  from 
which  the  universe  has  sprung,  of  whose  deepest 
heart  certainly  our  religion  is  born;  and  since 
from  this  same  source  the  sentiments  which  in- 
spire us  to-day  rise  like  a  fountain's  pure,  light- 
seeking  waters,  why  may  we  not  believe  and 
affirm  that  what  such  emotion  has  awakened  and 
bodied  forth  in  word  and  deed  is  very  truth? 
Not  indeed  logical  or  scientific  truth  —  a  skele- 
ton of  formulas  and  facts  —  but  the  truth  which 
is  borne  in  upon  the  soul  when  mothers  sing 


EMOTION  AND   TRUTH.  119 

their  children  to  sleep,  when  lovers  sitting  side 
by  side  watch  the  sun  sinking  beneath  the  hori- 
zon, and  the  stars  as  one  by  one  they  smile  from 
infinitude  on  the  homes  of  men;  such  truth  as 
the  flowers  speak,  when  from  their  lowly  beds 
they  look  up  and  laugh  before  us ;  such  as  chil- 
dren reveal  and  impersonate  when  heaven  is 
mirrored  in  their  pure  eyes  and  innocent  faces. 

If  truth  were  but  the  naked  fact,  where  should 
there  be  found  room  for  the  ineffable  charm 
which  interfuses  itself  with  the  glow  of  dawn 
and  sunset,  with  the  light  that  falls  from  starlit 
skies  and  from  the  countenances  of  those  we 
love;  for  the  passion  and  patience,  the  trust 
and  longing,  the  sacrifice  and  aspiration,  which 
impel  the  soul  to  transcend  the  limitations  of 
time  and  space  and  which  give  to  human  life 
its  power  and  blessedness? 

When  we  recall  the  years  that  are  no  more, 
the  paths  we  trod  in  childhood,  the  concert  of 
voices  that  in  the  long  ago  made  the  woodland 
ring  with  music,  the  quick  current  of  youthful 
blood  athrill  with  high  hopes  and  noble  resolves, 
and  suddenly  are  made  aware  that  it  has  all 
dissolved  into  emptiness  and  become  as  though 
it  had  never  been,  it  is  not  possible  to  remain 
cold  and  impassive.  When  we  turn  to  the  be- 
ginning of  our  early  manhood,  as  issuing  with 
sublime  self-confidence  from  the  portals  of 


I2O  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

our  Alma  Mater,  we  vowed  to  walk  and  work 
with  Christ,  to  illumine,  to  guide,  to  strengthen, 
to  console,  and  to  save  men,  and  are  made 
deeply  conscious  how  little  our  purposes  have 
fulfilled  themselves  in  deeds,  we  are  softened 
and  sobered,  grow  lowly-minded  and  meek, 
like  those  who  contemplate  ruins  which  the 
centuries  have  wrought.  In  such  mood  all 
vanity  and  self-complacency  die  within  us,  and 
words  of  praise  and  commendation  sound  like 
mockery. 

The  achievements  of  even  the  genuinely 
great,  if  they  be  considered  in  the  light  of  the 
Eternal,  are  insignificant. 

Were  God  not,  the  whole  race  of  man  would 
be  no  better  than  the  parasites  that  batten  on 
decay.  But  God  is,  and  they  who  have  best 
insight  best  know  that  man's  worth  is  meas- 
ured by  the  degree  of  his  kinship  with  Him, 
without  whom  he  would  be  but  a  semblance  and 
unreality. 

If  in  any  one  of  us  there  be  aught  that  may 
win  approval  or  awaken  admiration  or  thankful- 
ness, whether  it  be  truth,  or  honesty,  or  mildness, 
or  intelligence,  or  strength  of  mind,  or  rectitude, 
or  courage,  or  perseverance,  or  humility,  or 
love,  or  piety,  or  unselfishness,  it  is  of,  through, 
and  for  God,  from  whom  all  life  springs,  to 
whom  all  hope  looks,  toward  whom  all  yearn- 


EMOTION  AND    TRUTH.  121 

ing  moves,  on  whom  all  faith  rests,  in  whom  all 
hearts  find  repose. 

In  the  twenty-five  years  on  which  we  now  set 
the  seal  of  eternity,  whatever  may  have  been 
well  done  by  any  one  of  us  has  been  done  for 
Him  and  by  His  help.  The  field  is  His,  the 
seed  is  His ;  His  the  rain  and  the  sunshine ;  His 
the  vital  force  that  has  built  unto  itself  a  body 
and  brought  about  the  harmonic  play  of  all  the 
members  of  the  organism.  We  have  been  but 
His  servants,  and  had  we  not  been  at  all,  He, 
had  He  so  willed,  would  have  found  others  and 
better.  Our  only  merit  is  that  of  servants,  and 
true  service  is  our  only  blessedness. 

The  service  we  have  chosen  is  that  which  the 
Eternal  stooped  to  earth  and  wore  human  flesh 
to  perform.  It  is  the  most  beneficent,  the  holi- 
est, the  helpfullest,  the  most  needful  which  it 
can  fall  to  the  lot  of  man  to  do.  The  task  set 
us  is  to  make  ourselves  and  others  Christ-like 
and  God-like. 

If  those  who  profess  to  lead  a  religious  life 
have  the  morals  of  the  crowd  or  worse,  they 
are  the  most  contemptible  and  are,  in  fact,  the 
most  despised  of  men ;  but  those  who  have  the 
soul,  and  not  merely  the  name  of  priest,  are 
divine  men  —  are,  in  word  and  deed,  God's 
faithfullest  witnesses  to  the  Truth  that  liberates, 
to  the  Love  that  saves  and  beatifies. 


122  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

41  Whoso  has  felt  the  Spirit  of  the  Highest 
Cannot  confound  nor  doubt  Him  nor  deny  ; 
Yea,  with  one  voice,  O  world,  though  thou  deniest, 
Stand  thou  on  this  side,  for  on  that  am  I." 

No  unworthy  thought  has  impelled  us  to 
commemorate  this  day  with  solemn  rites  and 
grave  words.  Few  of  us  are  so  immature  as 
to  attach  importance  to  a  mere  demonstration. 
None  of  us  are  so  frivolous  as  to  imagine  that 
what  is  said  of  a  man  has  meaning  or  value 
other  than  that  derived  from  what  he  is;  and 
what  he  is,  not  himself  even,  but  God  alone 
knows. 

There  may  be  merit  in  collecting  so  many 
thousand  dollars  and  in  paying  mechanics  for 
fitting  together  so  many  stones  and  so  many 
pieces  of  wood,  but  where  the  aim  and  end  are 
spiritual,  praise  for  doing  such  things  is  not  to 
the  purpose.  Neither  the  heart  nor  the  proper 
work  of  such  a  one  is  in  matter,  which  has  mean- 
ing for  him  only  in  so  far  as  it  is  made  to  serve 
higher  interests,  by  becoming  the  nourishment 
or  the  symbol  of  the  soul.  He  knows  that  what 
each  one,  and  the  social  body  as  well,  most  needs 
is  not  wealth,  nor  privilege,  nor  cunning,  nor 
favor,  but  larger,  braver,  holier,  sweeter  life  — 
more  sympathy,  more  courage,  more  wisdom, 
more  love.  Those  prevail  who  are  stronger  than 
their  fellows  —  stronger  through  faith  and  de- 


EMOTION  AND    TRUTH.  123 

sire,  through  knowledge  and  virtue,  through 
self-control  and  devotion  to  truth  and  justice. 
God  is  a  Spirit,  and  those  whose  character  is 
built  on  the  principles  which  faith  and  hope 
make  certain,  which  best  reason  approves,  are  the 
powers  by  which  His  reign  is  established  and 
made  perpetual.  His  servants  conquer,  not  with 
the  sword,  not  with  money  nor  with  the  things 
money  can  buy,  but  by  the  soul,  which,  enrooted 
in  Him,  contemplates  all  things  in  the  light  of 
Eternity,  and  is  calm  and  unmoved  while  the 
pomp  and  pageantry  pass  by  to  sink  forever 
beyond  the  reach  of  all-penetrative  thought. 
Men,  like  children,  are  attracted  by  a  world  of 
shows ;  they  are  busy  with  vanities,  and  attach 
importance  to  trifles.  But  from  the  central 
heart  of  religion  the  divine  voice  declares  that 
only  the  things  which  minister  to  the  soul's  wel- 
fare have  worth;  that  there  is  no  genuine  life 
but  that  which  unfolds  itself  heavenward,  and, 
like  the  tendril  for  the  solid  stem,  reaches  after 
God.  Had  we  temples  built  of  gold  and  adorned 
with  every  kind  of  precious  stone;  though  the 
music  of  the  masters,  uttered  by  masters  ap- 
pealed to  us ;  though  from  canvas  and  stone  and 
high-raised  pulpit  genius  spoke  to  us,  it  were 
all  but  show  and  sound  if  it  did  not  lift  the  soul 
nearer  to  our  Father  in  heaven.  God's  men  are 
spiritual  men,  and  the  only  religious  progress 


124  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

is  progress  in  faith  and  love,  in  wisdom  and 
virtue. 

What  we  commemorate  to-day,  we  of  the 
diocese  of  Peoria,  bishops  and  priests,  brothers 
and  sisters,  and  the  people  whose  servants  we 
all  are,  what  this  company  of  distinguished  men 
have  come  from  many  sees  to  help  us  to  cele- 
brate worthily,  is  our  labors  for  the  moraliza- 
tion,  the  purification,  and  the  spiritualization 
of  human  life,  is  our  devotion  to  the  things 
that  make  for  righteousness  and  peace  and  life 
everlasting. 

If  we  have  built  churches,  it  is  that  the  people 
may  gather  there,  and  through  worship  and  the 
reception  of  the  sacraments  and  the  hearing  of 
the  Word  may  be  refreshed,  nourished,  and 
renewed  in  their  innermost  being.  If  we  have 
established  schools,  it  is  that  the  little  ones, 
whom  the  blessed  Saviour  loved,  who  are  our 
joy  and  our  hope,  may  grow  up  in  an  atmos- 
phere in  which  learning  blends  with  piety, 
knowledge  with  faith,  true  thought  with  chaste 
life,  love  with  obedience.  If  we  have  founded 
homes  for  those  whom  loss  or  sin  or  age  or 
poverty  has  made  helpless  or  miserable,  it  is 
because  we  know  that  they  are  our  brothers  and 
sisters,  and  that  we  do  best  for  our  Heavenly 
Father  and  for  ourselves  in  serving  them. 

This  is  what  we  cherish  most  and  most  love. 


EMOTION  AND    TRUTH.  12$ 

If  Peoria  and  the  diocese  of  Peoria  are  dear  to 
us,  —  and  God  and  we  all  know  they  are,  —  it 
is  so  not  chiefly  for  the  beautiful  site,  the  health- 
ful climate,  the  fertile  soil  from  which  the  corn 
bursts  like  song  from  happy  hearts;  it  is  so 
above  all  for  the  spirit  of  freedom,  of  good-will, 
of  helpfulness,  which  breathes  here  as  unhin- 
dered as  the  gentle  wind  that  kisses  the  prairie 
into  life  and  bloom;  they  are  dear  for  the  op- 
portunity which  is  given  here  to  all  alike  to 
upbuild  character,  to  confirm  will,  to  cultivate 
the  mind,  to  follow  after  the  better  things  of 
which  faith  and  hope  are  the  heralds. 

If  to-day  for  a  moment,,  even  in  thought,  I 
may  separate  myself  from  any  one  of  those  who 
during  the  twenty-five  years  that  have  now  be- 
come a  part  of  the  unchangeable  past  have  gath- 
ered about  me  in  still  increasing  numbers  and 
with  hearts  ever  more  willing,  I  will  say  that 
the  affection  I  bear  them  and  the  joy  they  give 
me  —  which,  like  the  ripening  fruit  and  the 
mellowing  wine,  grow  more  precious  as  time 
lengthens  —  are  born,  not  so  much  of  the  suc- 
cess with  which  they  have  accomplished  what- 
ever they  have  been  asked  to  do,  as  of  their 
spirit  of  disinterestedness  and  self-sacrifice,  of 
their  courage  and  ability,  their  magnanimity 
and  single-heartedness,  their  never-slumbering 
watchfulness  over  the  good  name  of  the  diocese 


126  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

and  that  of  its  priesthood.  When  the  office  of 
bishop  was  offered  to  me,  if  I  hesitated  to  accept 
the  burden  and  the  honor,  it  was  largely  (if  my 
memory  deceive  me  not)  from  a  dread  lest  my 
opinion  of  man's  high  estate,  as  revealed  in  the 
lives  of  priests  and  nuns,  should  be  lowered  by 
the  more  intimate  knowledge  of  them  which 
necessarily  comes  to  those  who  are  placed  in 
authority  over  them.  A  personal  experience  of 
twenty-five  years  is  a  broad  basis  for  the  judg- 
ment of  an  individual,  and  it  is  a  source  of 
inner  strength  and  freedom  to  me  to  be  able  to 
feel  and  to  say,  in  perfect  sincerity,  that,  though 
priests  and  nuns  are  not  exempt  from  the  infirm- 
ities which  inhere  in  all  that  is  human,  I  have 
found  them  to  be  the  kindliest,  the  most  unsel- 
fish, the  most  loyal,  the  most  pure-minded,  and 
the  most  devoted  of  men  and  women.  Never 
have  I  appealed  to  them  in  vain,  when  I  have 
appealed  to  the  God-like  in  man.  They  have 
confirmed  my  faith  in  human  nature,  and  in  the 
worth  and  sacredness  of  life. 

They  have  made  me  more  certain  that  we  are 
all  the  children  of  an  Almighty  and  all-loving 
Father,  from  out  whose  thought  and  care  we 
can  never  die. 

Let  me  conclude,  in  my  own  name  and  in 
that  of  the  whole  diocese,  with  the  expression 
of  sincere  thanks  to  his  eminence,  the  Cardinal 


EMOTION  AND    TRUTH.  127 

Archbishop  of  Baltimore,  to  the  most  reverend 
archbishops  and  bishops,  and  to  the  reverend 
clergymen  who  have  done  us  the  honor  to  be 
our  guests  to-day  and  to  heighten  by  their 
presence  and  sympathy  the  significance  and  the 
joy  of  this  celebration. 


VII. 

EDUCATION   AND   PATRIOTISM. 

A  S  they  alone  are  Christians  who  strive 
•***  earnestly  to  lead  a  high  and  worthy  life, 
so  only  those  who  are  seriously  intent  on  mak- 
ing themselves  wise,  strong,  and  virtuous  are 
patriots.  Words  are  idle  unless  they  are  filled 
with  meaning  by  the  deeds  of  those  who  utter 
them.  A  soldier  may  die  in  battle,  and  be  only 
a  mercenary;  but  he  who  so  lives  as  to  make 
men  thankful  that  he  is  their  fellow-citizen  is  a 
patriot.  By  making  use  of  the  opportunities 
which  liberty  offers,  one  may  amass  vast  wealth, 
and  be  an  enemy  of  freedom ;  but  he  who  frees 
himself  from  within  by  overcoming  ignorance 
and  greed  makes  us  think  well,  not  only  of 
himself,  but  of  his  country  also.  Children  love 
their  parents,  not  when  they  praise  them,  but 
when  by  their  intelligent  and  virtuous  behavior 
they  make  them  happy :  and  so  those  who  boast 
of  the  greatness  of  their  country  do  not  there- 
fore love  it;  but  its  true  lovers  are  those  who 
strengthen  and  glorify  it  by  their  wisdom,  hon- 


ED UCA  TION  AND  PA  TRIO 7YSM.  1 29 

esty,  unselfishness,  sincerity,  and  courage.  If 
in  a  foreign  land  we  see  an  American  who  is 
drunk,  or  loud  and  vulgar,  we  are  forced  to 
confess  that  he  is  not  a  true,  but  a  false  and 
traitorous  American;  and  here  at  home  the 
miserable  victims  of  greed,  who  offer  and  take 
bribes,  who  combine  to  crush  the  weak,  who 
to  increase  their  trade  make  war  on  a  defense- 
less people,  are  not  true  Americans,  but  false 
and  traitorous  Americans.  The  characteristics 
of  a  true  American  are  good-will,  sympathy 
with  the  helpless  and  oppressed,  intelligence, 
uprightness,  energy,  courage,  and  industry ;  and 
if  we  love  our  country  and  desire  to  make  its 
institutions  permanent,  we  must  labor  to  cul- 
tivate these  virtues  in  ourselves  and  in  those 
whom  we  are  able  to  influence.  The  love  of 
education,  in  the  deep  sense  of  the  word,  and 
the  love  of  country  are  one  and  the  same  love. 
Nothing  but  education,  domestic,  religious,  and 
scholastic,  can  form  the  virtues  which  make 
patriots. 

Primarily,  education  is  growth;  and  growth 
is  made  possible  and  promoted  by  nutrition. 
The  food  we  take  and  assimilate  makes  us  what 
we  are.  In  the  case  of  the  body  this  is  plain. 
We  grow  and  maintain  strength,  by  throwing 
day  by  day  into  the  life-current  the  substances 
of  which  the  body  is  composed.  If  this  ceases, 
9 


130  SOCIALISM  AND  LAB  OK. 

we  cease  to  grow  and  begin  to  decay.  The  tak- 
ing of  nourishment  is  not  something  which  is 
done  once  for  all  —  it  is  a  habitual  process, 
which  goes  on  whether  we  eat  or  abstain, 
whether  we  wake  or  sleep.  This  is  also  true 
of  our  spiritual  being.  The  mind  grows  by 
what  it  feeds  on  habitually,  day  by  day;  and 
the  kind  of  nourishment  it  assimilates,  and  the 
thoroughness  with  which  it  assimilates,  deter- 
mine its  quality  and  power. 

The  proper  nourishment  of  our  spiritual  being 
is  not  knowledge  or  speculative  truth.  What 
we  merely  know  hardly  enters  into  the  fiber  of 
our  higher  nature.  Hence  the  information  we 
get  in  school  about  the  surface  of  the  earth  and 
the  stars,  about  kings  and  wars,  about  algebraic 
and  geometric  problems,  about  philosophies  and 
literatures,  neither  makes  a  deep  impression  nor 
is  long  remembered.  Such  information  does 
not  so  attract  us  as  to  cause  us  to  live  with  it 
and  find  in  it  our  habitual  nourishment.  It 
has  therefore  little  to  do  with  the  formation  of 
character.  When  we  ask  what  kind  of  man 
one  is,  we  do  not  mean  to  inquire  about  his 
information  or  his  possessions,  but  about  his 
character;  and  to  get  insight  into  his  charac- 
ter we  wish  to  learn,  not  what  he  knows,  but 
what  in  his  inmost  soul  he  believes,  hopes,  and 
strives  for  —  his  tastes  and  preferences,  his 


ED  UCA  TION  AND  PA  TRIO  TISM.  131 

bearing  and  behavior,  the  breadth  and  depth  of 
his  love,  the  largeness  and  fullness  of  his  sym- 
pathies, his  attitude  toward  the  temporal  and 
Eternal. 

Thus  character  is  primarily  moral  —  it  is 
what  a  man  is,  not  the  kind  of  clothes  he  wears 
or  the  kind  of  information  he  possesses.  It  is 
a  result  of  nutrition  and  growth,  and  can  no- 
wise be  formed  by  mechanical  processes;  and 
since  character  is  the  man  himself,  it  is  pre- 
cisely this  moral  growth  which  it  is  the  chief 
business  of  the  school  to  promote;  and  if  it 
fail  in  this,  it  fails  radically.  A  characterless 
man  is  neither  good  in  himself  nor  good  in  his 
relations  to  any  part  of  the  social  environment. 
Character  is  formed  by  cultivating  a  taste  for 
what  is  true,  good,  and  fair,  —  a  love  for  jus- 
tice, honesty,  and  kindliness,  for  reverence,  mod- 
esty, and  courage;  a  loathing  for  dirt,  physical 
and  moral,  in  thought,  word,  and  deed ;  a  scorn 
of  lies,  hypocrisy,  and  cant,  —  by  filling  the 
young  with  profound  faith  in  the  worth  and 
sacredness  of  life,  by  helping  them  to  feel  how 
divine  a  thing  it  is  to  be  alive  when  one  has 
hope  and  enthusiasm,  is  chaste  and  loving,  wise 
and  helpful.  In  learning  to  know  their  teachers 
the  pupils  should  be  able  to  perceive  and  love 
in  them  the  fairest  and  noblest  virtues.  Heroic 
and  saintly  men  and  women  also,  as  they  are 


132  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

portrayed  in  literature,  should  be  often  brought 
before  them.  Thus  they  shall  come  to  live  not 
only  in  an  atmosphere  of  high  thoughts,  but 
in  the  presence  of  the  worthiest  whom  history 
makes  known;  and  they  shall  little  by  little 
gain  insight  into  the  truth  that  life  is  more 
than  its  circumstance,  that  right  and  honorable 
life  is  the  only  prosperity,  the  only  wealth,  and 
that  the  worst  misfortune  and  punishment  is  to 
be  base.  When  the  vital  strength  which  issues 
in  right  conduct  has  become  habitual  with  them, 
instinctive,  a  second  nature,  then  we  may  urge 
them  with  all  confidence  to  build  on  this  foun- 
dation whatever  else  may  exalt,  refine,  and  en- 
rich human  life;  we  may  push  them,  according 
to  their  endowments,  to  make  themselves  ora- 
tors, poets,  statesmen,  captains  of  industry,  men 
of  science,  inventors,  discoverers,  leaders  in  re- 
ligious and  social  movements,  confident  that  the 
more  they  upbuild  their  individual  power  the 
more  shall  they  become  general  benefactors  and 
true  patriots,  men  who  shall  find  their  happiness 
not  in  hoarding  money,  but  in  diffusing  good, 
in  promoting  religion,  morality,  education,  and 
whatever  else  tends  to  the  common  welfare. 
Without  misgivings  we  may  seek  to  inspire 
them  with  faith  in  the  worth  of  intellectual 
culture,  with  the  confidence  that  they  shall  be 
able  to  compass  it,  and  with  the  love  of  the  ex- 


EDUCATION  AND  PATRIOTISM.  133 

cellence  which  it  procures.  We  may  point  out 
to  them  that  the  noblest  work  is  that  which  man 
performs  with  his  noblest  faculties;  that  if 
the  vicious  are  slaves,  the  ignorant  are  bond 
servants,  fatally  doomed  to  do  the  world's 
drudgery;  that  the  chances  of  success,  even  in 
the  ordinary  affairs  of  life,  are  as  two  hundred 
and  fifty  to  one,  in  favor  of  college-bred  men 
and  women.  We  may  show  them  how  a  culti- 
vated mind  is  a  perpetual  invitation  and  oppor- 
tunity to  raise  one's  self  to  higher  and  more 
profitable  occupations,  to  acquaint  one's  self 
with  the  best  thought  contained  in  the  best  lit- 
erature, and  thus  to  make  one's  self  at  home 
with  the  noblest  minds  of  all  ages  and  coun- 
tries ;  how  in  thus  opening  up  an  inexhaustible 
supply  of  spiritual  nourishment,  it  gives  one 
the  freedom,  not  of  a  city,  though  the  most 
glorious,  but  of  the  world,  from  the  dawn  of 
history,  even  to  the  present  hour.  We  may  go 
on  to  explain  how  much  longer  vigor  of  mind 
endures  than  vigor  of  body.  The  manual 
laborer  is,  I  suppose,  in  his  prime  from  the 
age  of  twenty-five  to  thirty-five  years;  he  is 
old  before  he  is  fifty.  The  mental  worker  does 
not  reach  his  prime  before  he  is  fifty,  and,  if  he 
is  a  serious  student,  his  value  may  increase  till 
he  is  seventy  and  more.  His  period  of  growth 
(and  growth  is  gladness)  is  very  much  longer 


134  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

than  that  of  the  uneducated;  and  his  work 
has  greater  worth  both  for  himself  and  for  the 
social  environment. 

If  the  average  of  moral  and  intellectual  cul- 
ture were  higher,  we  should  be  able  not  only  to 
procure  the  needs  and  comforts  of  life  with 
less  effort,  but  we  should  have  the  wisdom  and 
strength  to  deny  ourselves  many  things  which 
are  harmful  and  mere  waste  of  individual  and 
collective  force.  All  the  luxuries  involve  dissi- 
pation of  vital  energy  and  deterioration  of  the 
quality  of  life;  but  among  the  luxuries  no  sen- 
sible man  will  place  the  great  works  of  art, 
which  spring  from  the  highest  activities  of  the 
soul,  and  without  which  our  whole  existence 
must  sink  to  lower  levels.  What  more  strik- 
ing instance  could  there  be  of  the  crude  kind 
of  thinking  in  vogue  among  us,  than  that  a 
university  professor  should  deem  it  not  absurd 
to  place  a  great  money-gatherer  on  the  same 
footing  with  a  great  poet?  The  one  is  a  me- 
chanical, the  other  a  vital  man.  Riches  are 
akin  to  fear,  to  cowardice  and  death;  but  the 
highest  thought  rightly  expressed  is  the  fine 
essence  of  the  purest  life  stored  up  for  all  who 
are  able  to  appreciate  and  admire,  even  to  the 
remotest  age. 

But  however  high  we  may  place  genius 
and  intellectual  culture  as  educational  powers, 


EDUCATION  AND  PATRIOTISM.  135 

when  there  is  question  of  patriotism  we  must 
come  back  to  the  moral  element  in  human 
nature,  to  the  sense  of  duty,  to  character.  The 
essential  is  not  what  we  know,  but  what  we 
believe  and  love  and  do  with  all  our  hearts. 
George  Washington  was  not  a  man  of  genius 
or  of  the  best  intellectual  culture,  but  he  was 
a  great  character  —  honest,  simple,  true,  dis- 
interested, incorruptible.  He  thought  not  of 
private  gain,  nor  of  personal  glory,  nor  of  the 
aggrandizement  of  his  country,  but  believing 
with  all  his  heart  in  the  right  of  the  people  to 
govern  themselves,  he  gave  his  time,  his  wealth, 
his  life,  to  make  such  government  actual  and 
permanent.  It  could  not  have  occurred  to  him 
that  Americans  should  ever  seek  to  conquer  a 
people  struggling  for  independence  —  to  him, 
who  had  inscribed  upon  his  victorious  banner 
the  Declaration  of  Independence.  He  could  not 
have  dreamed  that  the  extension  of  trade  and 
the  enriching  of  trusts  should  ever  be  deemed 
by  Americans  a  justification  of  wars  of  con- 
quest. He  had  a  noble  soul,  he  had  a  great 
heart,  he  had  honest  convictions,  he  had  the 
courage  of  his  opinions.  Li  we  compare  him 
with  Julius  Csesar,  he  is  altogether  inferior  in 
intellectual  grasp  and  power,  but  wholly  supe- 
rior in  character  —  in  the  qualities  which  make 
a  man  wise,  helpful,  and  beneficent.  The  one 


136  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

overthrew  a  Republic  to  build  an  empire, 
which  quickly  became  the  shame  and  ruin  of 
the  world;  the  other  founded  a  republic  which 
has  been  a  refuge  and  blessing  for  all  the  vic- 
tims of  tyranny  in  the  whole  wide  world,  a  re- 
public for  whose  prosperity  and  continuance 
all  pure,  gentle,  loving,  and  Christian  souls  in 
the  whole  wide  world  must  pray. 


VIII. 

ASSASSINATION   AND   ANARCHY. 

[Address  delivered  in  Peoria  at  Mass-meeting  in  memory 
of  the  death  of  President  McKinley.] 

TN  the  presence  of  the  grief  and  humiliation 
^  of  a  great  nation,  one  would  wish  to  be 
silent.  Words  cannot  give  right  utterance  to 
what  we  feel.  They  are  apt  even  to  strike  us 
as  but  noise  and  sound,  to  distract  and  disturb 
rather  than  to  strengthen  and  console.  There 
is  not  question  here  of  the  passing  of  a  man, 
however  true,  however  good,  however  noble  he 
may  have  been.  The  occasion  does  not  call  for 
clamorous  denunciation  or  vulgar  abuse;  much 
less  for  appeals  to  the  beast  of  prey  that  ever 
lurks  in  the  human  breast.  Crime  is  not  a 
remedy  for  crime;  lawlessness  is  not  a  correc- 
tive of  lawlessness.  A  great  people  and  petty 
thoughts  or  revengeful  feelings  go  ill  together. 
The  strong  do  not  rail ;  the  brave  make  no  out- 
cries. In  proportion  to  one's  power  should  be 
his  forbearance  and  self-control.  If  our  dead 
President  was  great,  he  was  great  through  his 


138  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

kindliness,  his  forgiving  spirit,  his  desire  to  be 
of  help,  his  modesty  and  lowly-mindedness. 
His  greatness  sprang  from  his  Christian  faith 
and  character,  rather  than  from  any  surpassing 
intellectual  endowments.  If  we  grieve  for  his 
sad  taking  away,  let  our  thoughts  and  senti- 
ments be  such  as  he  would  approve.  To  die  as 
he  died  can  hardly  be  deemed  an  evil  for  him. 
For  more  than  half  a  century  he  had  led  a  life 
of  honesty,  purity,  and  honor;  he  had  served 
his  God  and  his  country  from  his  earliest  years ; 
he  had  reached  the  topmost  height  to  which  an 
American  citizen  may  aspire.  He  had  the  re- 
spect of  the  whole  people;  and  those  who  dis- 
agreed with  him  in  matters  of  policy  were  glad 
to  accord  him  the  high  merit  of  a  disinterested 
patriotism.  In  the  midst  of  a  whole  world 
who  thus  honored  him,  while  still  in  the  full 
vigor  of  manhood,  untouched  by  the  palsying 
and  blighting  hand  of  age,  he  is  suddenly 
stricken  by  one  whose  mental  and  moral  nature 
had  been  wholly  perverted.  He  dies  in  the  ful- 
fillment of  kindly  offices ;  he  dies  in  the  midst  of 
the  people  who  loved  him  and  whom  he  loved; 
he  dies  after  many  years  of  life  of  noblest  ser- 
vice and  without  stain.  His  task  is  done;  his 
fame  is  secure;  and  his  example  remains  with 
us  to  show  us  what  a  true  American  should  be. 
When  the  generous  and  the  good  have  been 


ASSASSINATION  AND  ANARCHY.  139 

placed  on  the  summit  of  earthly  things,  their 
memory  abides  as  a  possession  forever.  The 
calamity  which  has  befallen,  has  befallen  not 
him,  but  the  nation.  When  dire  misfortunes 
overtake  individuals  or  a  people  whom  inner 
power  makes  great,  they  convert  what  might 
utterly  destroy  baser  natures  to  means  of  good. 
We  shall  therefore  seek  to  find  the  uses  there 
may  be  in  this  adversity.  The  cry  of  shame  and 
rage  which  has  been  heard  throughout  the  whole 
land  is  intelligible.  It  is  the  instinctive  utterance 
of  the  love  we  bear  our  country  and  of  the  in- 
finite abhorrence  we  feel  for  whoever  or  what- 
ever may  do  it  hurt.  Within  our  inmost  souls 
we  are  persuaded  that  America  is  God's  greatest 
earthly  gift  to  His  children;  that  He  has  des- 
tined it  to  be  the  training  ground  of  a  nobler 
race,  the  home  of  a  more  Christlike  and  diviner 
humanity,  whose  beneficent  influence  shall  be 
as  self-diffusive  as  love,  and  as  wide-spreading 
as  the  unending  globe.  When,  therefore,  a 
crime  is  committed  against  the  one  man  who  is 
the  symbol  and  the  representative  of  the  whole 
national  life,  we  are  filled  with  amazement,  we 
are  confused  with  astonishment,  we  are  roused 
to  indignation,  and  in  our  mad  bewilderment 
we  lose  sight  of  the  fundamental  principles  on 
which  our  government  rests.  Declaimers  and 
demagogues  think  to  win  favor  by  violent  Ian- 


I4O  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

guage,  and  even  from  the  chairs  which  have 
been  established  to  teach  wisdom,  rash  counsels 
are  given.  When  shall  we  acquire  that  repose 
which  is  a  mark  of  maturity,  the  imperturbable 
mind  which  belongs  to  those  who  have  faith  in 
an  overruling  Providence  and  are  certain  of 
themselves  ? 

There  are  no  patent  remedies  for  social  evils. 
What  we  sow  we  reap,  whether  there  be  question 
of  individuals  or  of  nations.  We  cannot  remain 
habitually  indifferent  to  the  supreme  interests 
of  religion  and  justice,  and  when  emergencies 
come  upon  us,  save  ourselves  by  devices  and 
contrivances.  We  do  not  need  more  or  new 
laws :  what  we  need  is  a  new  spirit  —  a  more 
real  faith  in  God,  a  more  real  love  of  our  fellow- 
man,  more  honesty,  more  chastity,  more  unsel- 
fishness. We  need  a  religion  that  will  not  lead 
us  to  think  it  enough  to  skin  and  film  the  ulcer- 
ous place,  but  that  will  impel  us  to  probe  deep 
and  cut  away  the  gangrenous  flesh  that  poisons 
the  fountains  of  life. 

As  a  people  we  are  wanting  in  respect  for 
those  who  are  clothed  with  authority;  we  lack 
reverence;  we  are  too  ready  to  persuade  our- 
selves that  all  is  well  so  long  as  wealth  and  pop- 
ulation increase ;  we  wish  to  be  flattered,  and  we 
turn  away  from  the  truth-speakers  who  love  us, 
to  listen  to  the  demagogues  who  would  lure  us 


ASSASSINATION  AND  ANARCHY.  141 

to  ruin.  We  seek  facile  solutions  of  the  great 
problems,  and  distrust  whoever,  for  instance, 
declares  that  to  teach  the  young  to  read,  write, 
and  cipher  is  not  to  educate  them;  that  educa- 
tion consists  essentially  in  the  building  of  char- 
acter, which  is  what  a  man  is,  and  not  what 
he  knows.  We  forget  that  morality,  and  not 
legality,  is  the  only  foundation  on  which  a  free 
government  can  securely  rest.  When  corrupt 
influences  determine  legislation,  laws  cease  to 
be  regarded  as  binding.  Men  yield  to  force,  but 
in  their  hearts  they  rebel  against,  the  injustice. 

When  immoralities  and  crimes  become  gen- 
eral, minds  are  perverted  and  consciences  made 
callous.  How  is  it  possible  to  read  day  after 
day  of  the  suicides,  the  murders,  the  lynchings, 
the  robberies,  the  divorces,  the  adulteries,  the 
prostitutions  and  corruptions  with  which  the 
newspapers  are  filled,  and  not  to  lose  the  sense 
of  the  sacredness  of  human  life? 

Vice  propagates  itself  far  more  easily  than 
virtue,  as  men  take  disease,  but  not  health,  from 
one  another ;  and  if  whoever  is  guilty  of  crime, 
or  of  misdeeds  of  whatever  kind,  is  at  once  ad- 
vertised to  the  world  in  millions  of  sheets  as  an 
object  of  curiosity,  of  interest,  and  at  times  of 
admiration,  how  can  the  readers  of  such  things 
retain  balance  of  judgment  and  a  sensitive  con- 
sciousness of  the  heinousness  of  sin? 


142  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

It  is  easy  to  put  to  death  the  wretched  man 
who  has  committed  the  outrage  which  has  filled 
us  all  with  consternation;  it  is  easy  to  denounce 
and  difficult  to  exaggerate  the  inhumanity,  the 
fiendish  nature  of  those  who  would  destroy  the 
whole  fabric  of  society,  our  very  civilization, 
the  beliefs,  the  laws,  the  forces,  which  make  us 
men  and  give  value  to  life ;  it  is  easy  in  the  hour 
of  national  affliction  to  gather  in  numerous  as- 
semblies throughout  the  land  to  utter  our  grief 
and  to  express  our  abhorrence.  And  all  this  is 
well,  springing  as  it  does  from  what  is  best 
within  us;  but  it  has  little  efficacy.  It  will  do 
good  only  if  it  helps  to  make  us  good.  We  can- 
not destroy  anarchy  by  enacting  more  rigid 
laws;  much  less  by  resorting  to  violence. 

"  God  bless  every  undertaking/'  said  Presi- 
dent McKinley  in  1897,  "  God  bless  every 
undertaking  which  revives  patriotism  and  re- 
bukes the  indifferent  and  lawless."  And  in 
1894:  "  With  patriotism  in  our  hearts  there  is 
no  danger  of  anarchy  and  no  danger  to  the 
American  Union." 

There  is  the  patriotism  of  instinct,  that  which 
binds  a  man  to  the  land  of  his  birth  and  to  the 
home  about  which  cluster  his  earliest  and  sweet- 
est memories;  and  there  is  the  patriotism  of 
reason  and  religion,  whereby  we  are  made  con- 
scious that  our  dearest  interests,  temporal  and 


ASSASSINATION  AND   ANARCHY.  143 

eternal,  are  vitally  associated  with  our  country, 
with  its  prosperity  and  security,  its  honor  and 
welfare.  The  patriotism  of  instinct  needs  little 
encouragement;  it  is  implanted  by  nature  and 
is  self-developed;  but  that  of  reason  and  reli- 
gion must  be  cultivated  and  cherished  with  cease- 
less care  and  vigilance,  as  reason  and  religion 
themselves  are  living  forces  only  in  the  self- 
active. 

To  this  higher  patriotism  none  but  the  wise 
and  good  are  true ;  and  false  to  it  are  not  those 
alone  who  commit  crime  against  the  majesty 
and  sacredness  of  the  State,  but  false  to  it  are 
all  who  are  vicious  themselves,  all  who  by  word 
or  example  sow  the  seeds  of  vice.  The  germ 
of  anarchy  is  in  every  wrongdoer,  in  every  law- 
breaker. It  is  in  those  who  propagate  irreli- 
gion,  who  undermine  man's  faith  in  God  and 
in  his  own  spiritual  nature,  for  the  moral  code 
of  the  people  is  their  religion.  What  is  right 
or  wrong  for  them  is  what  they  believe,  not 
what  they  know,  to  be  so.  For  all  of  us,  indeed, 
duty  is  a  thing  of  faith,  not  of  the  pure  reason. 
Religion  has  rocked  the  cradles  of  all  the  na- 
tions, and  infidelity,  issuing  in  insatiable  greed 
and  sensuality,  has  dug  the  graves  of  those  that 
have  perished,  sophistry  and  indulgence  destroy- 
ing what  had  been  built  by  faith  and  virtue. 
There  is  the  principle  of  anarchy  in  the  mobs 


144  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

that  gather  to  torture  and  murder  with  fiendish 
cruelty  the  unfortunate  beings  for  whose  pun- 
ishment laws  have  been  enacted.  There  is  the 
germ  of  anarchy  in  the  homes  of  those  who 
marry  as  recklessly,  and  separate  with  as  little 
compunction,  as  animals  breed.  It  is  in  the 
boodleism  which  in  our  cities  fosters  prostitu- 
tion, the  criminal  saloon,  the  dance  hall,  and  the 
gambling  den.  It  is  in  our  street  fairs,  when 
they  are  made  a  pretext  for  pandering  to  the 
lowest  passions  of  the  crowd.  It  lurks  in  the 
very  constitution  of  our  competitive  system,  if 
this  system  leads  us  to  prefer  markets  to  men, 
riches  to  the  dignity  and  honor  of  human  beings ; 
if  it  so  turns  us  away  from  the  ends  and  ideals 
for  which  the  wise  live  as  to  make  of  the  nation 
a  money-getting  mob,  where  the  few  are  dwarfed 
and  crippled  by  their  enormous  possessions, 
while  the  multitude  seek  to  drown  their  sense  of 
misery  in  alcohol  and  degrading  pleasures.  It 
is  not  conceivable  that  this  should  be  the  fate 
of  us,  the  heirs  of  all  ages,  us,  the  latest  birth 
of  time.  Rather  shall  we  lay  to  heart  and  be 
convinced  in  our  inmost  souls  of  this  truth, 
uttered  by  one  of  the  best  inspired  teachers  of 
our  age :  "  There  is  no  wealth  but  life  —  life, 
including  all  its  powers  of  love,  of  joy,  and  of 
admiration.  That  country  is  the  richest  which 
nourishes  the  greatest  number  of  noble  and 


ASSASSINATION  AND  ANARCHY.  145 

happy  human  beings;  that  man  is  richest  who, 
having  perfected  the  functions  of  his  own  life 
to  the  utmost,  has  also  the  widest  helpful  in- 
fluence, both  personal  and  by  means  of  his 
possessions,  over  the  lives  of  others." 

There  is  not  now,  nor  has  there  ever  been, 
a  civilized  people.  Ignorance,  sin,  depravity, 
injustice,  cruelty,  deceit,  greed,  and  selfishness 
have  always  prevailed  and  still  prevail  in  the 
world.  The  majority  has  never  loved,  nor  does 
it  now  love,  truth  and  mercy  and  purity  and  holi- 
ness. But  we,  more  than  any  other  people,  are 
dedicated  to  the  securing  of  the  largest  freedom, 
the  fullest  opportunity,  the  completest  justice  to 
all  —  to  men  and  women,  to  the  strong  and  the 
weak,  to  the  rich  and  the  poor.  These  are  the 
principles  which  we  proclaimed  when  first  we 
took  our  place  in  the  family  of  Christian  nations ; 
these  are  the  principles  which  our  greatest  and 
most  representative  men,  whether  orators  or 
statesmen  or  warriors  or  poets,  have  with  deep- 
est conviction  asserted  to  be  the  embodiment  of 
the  spirit  of  America.  This  is  the  meaning  of 
our  life;  this  is  the  key  to  our  destiny.  Our 
conception  of  democracy  is  not  that  it  is,  like 
some  of  the  barbarian  empires  of  the  past,  an 
irresistible  power  whose  mission  is  to  overrun 
and  subjugate,  to  conquer  and  lay  waste.  On 
the  contrary,  from  our  point  of  view  democracy 

10 


146  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

is  a  beneficent  force.  It  rests  on  faith  in  human 
nature ;  on  the  educability  of  all  men,  if  they  be 
but  rightly  environed  and  attended. 

Institutions  are  preserved  by  the  principles 
from  which  they  originate,  and  if  our  country 
is  to  grow,  not  in  wealth  and  numbers  alone, 
but  in  inner  power  and  worth,  we  must  adhere 
with  unalterable  fidelity  to  the  great  truths 
which  inspired  our  fathers  when  they  founded 
the  Republic.  Nay,  since  it  is  the  nature  of  vital 
truth  to  develop,  we  must  see  more  clearly  than 
it  was  possible  for  them  to  see,  that  the  Republic 
means  justice  to  all,  good-will  to  all,  helpfulness 
to  all ;  and  first  of  all,  to  those  who  are  overbur- 
dened, who  are  insufficiently  equipped,  who  are 
sorely  tried.  The  cry  of  the  laborer  is  for  jus- 
tice, not  for  charity;  and  it  is  a  cry  which  all 
the  good  gladly  reecho.  But  let  us  remember 
that  men  are  just  only  when  they  love.  Sym- 
pathy gives  insight,  and  where  this  is  lacking 
we  are  blind  to  the  injustice  our  fellows  suffer 
and  we  do  them  wrong  with  easy  consciences. 
The  impulse  now,  as  of  old,  is  to  seek  to  over- 
come evil  with  evil.  The  world  is  so  full  of  per- 
versity that  the  only  way,  it  would  seem,  in 
which  society  can  protect  itself  is  to  cut  off 
for  a  time  or  for  ever  those  who  sin  against  its 
laws.  But  no  punishment,  however  severe,  can 
destroy  the  roots  from  which  grows  the  tree 


ASSASSINATION  AND  ANARCHY.  147 

that  bears  the  bitter  fruit ;  and  if  in  any  part  of 
the  world  men  should  ever  become  rightly  civ- 
ilized, they  will  overcome  evil  with  good.  They 
will  not  condemn  men  to  do  work  which  they 
cannot  do  with  joy,  work  which  takes  away 
heart  and  hope,  which  cripples  the  body  and 
darkens  the  mind.  They  will  suffer  none  to  live 
in  ignorance  who  might  have  knowledge ;  none  to 
live  in  vice  who  might  be  made  pure  and  holy.  In 
their  cities  there  will  not  be  found  districts  where 
no  innocent  or  healthful  creature  can  breathe 
and  not  become  tainted.  There  shall  be  no 
fortunes  built  on  dead  men's  bones  and  cemented 
with  blood ;  no  splendid  dwellings  around  which 
shriek  the  ghosts  of  women  whose  toil  did  not 
bring  enough  to  save  them  from  lives  of  shame. 
It  is  toward  all  this  that  we  must  strive  and 
struggle,  if  we  are  not  to  be  recreant  to  our 
most  sacred  duties,  false  to  the  mission  which 
God  has  given  to  America. 

In  the  shadow  of  the  gloom  that  falls  on  the 
hearts  of  all  the  people,  as  what  was  mortal  of 
the  most  religious,  the  most  God-fearing  of  our 
presidents  is  lowered  into  the  grave,  let  the 
eternal  principles  of  freedom  and  justice,  of 
truth  and  love,  of  religion  and  righteousness, 
gleam  on  us  with  fuller  beauty  and  power,  like 
stars  from  the  raven  bosom  of  night. 

Let  us  rouse  ourselves  from  the  torpor  which 


148  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

benumbs  our  spiritual  being.  Let  us  forget  a 
little  our  petty  and  selfish  interests  and  pleas- 
ures, that  we  may  become  able  to  enter  into  the 
larger  life  of  our  country,  each  working  as  a 
separate  individual  force  for  the  good  of  all. 
So  shall  the  calamity  which  has  befallen  startle 
us  into  newness  of  heart  and  mind,  making  us 
more  solicitous  for  the  common  welfare,  more 
careful  lest  we  ourselves  give  offense;  so  shall 
there  be  more  love  and  piety  in  our  homes,  more 
reverence  and  docility  in  our  schools,  more 
faith  and  religion  in  our  churches,  more  wisdom 
and  virtue  in  our  public  life.  And  in  this  way, 
and  possibly  in  no  other,  shall  we  be  able  to 
make  such  crimes  as  this,  which  has  filled  us  with 
horror  and  dismay,  for  ever  impossible. 


IX. 

CHURCH   AND   COUNTRY. 

'IT 7 HEN  a  bishop  gets  an  auxiliary  it  is  time 
for  him  to  begin  to  grow  silent,  even 
though  in  our  councils  we  have  declared  that  a 
bishop's  chief  office  and  duty  is  to  preach.  But, 
as  the  steed  that  has  been  familiar  with  the 
gleam  of  bayonets  and  the  thunder  of  battle 
will  still,  amid  the  peaceful  fields  and  quiet 
homes  of  men,  at  the  faintest  breath  of  some 
martial  strain,  feel  again  the  warlike  fire  re- 
kindle, so  indeed  it  would  be  hard  for  me  to 
keep  silence  when  you  ask  me  to  speak  of  the 
things  which  for  many  years  I  have  tried  to 
love  best  —  the  Catholic  Church  and  the  Ameri- 
can Republic.  Are  they  not  the  symbols  of 
what  should  be  most  dear  to  true  and  well- 
born souls  —  the  love  of  God  and  the  love  of 
one's  fellow-men? 

It  is  a  habit  with  us  to  speak  of  the  triumphs 
and  glories  of  the  Church  in  ages  which  are 
gone.  We  love  to  tell  the  story  of  her  martyrs 
and  confessors,  of  her  saints  and  founders  of 
religious  orders;  we  dwell  gladly  on  her  mar- 


150  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

velous  success  in  converting  the  barbarous 
races  that  have  grown  into  Christendom,  in 
purifying  morals,  in  softening  manners,  in  con- 
secrating and  protecting  woman,  in  founding 
schools,  in  preserving  the  treasures  of  classi- 
cal literature,  in  fostering  the  arts;  in  leading 
migratory  tribes  to  choose  fixed  homes,  to  fell 
the  forest,  drain  the  marsh,  build  cities  and  put 
themselves  under  the  rule  of  law.  Her  name 
has  indeed  been  associated  at  times,  during  the 
lapse  of  nineteen  hundred  years,  with  things 
upon  which  we  cannot  dwell  with  pleasure  or  ap- 
proval, but  her  general  course  and  influence  have 
made  for  righteousness,  peace,  charity,  reverence, 
chastity,  obedience,  mildness,  modesty,  kindli- 
ness, and  habits  of  cheerful  industry.  What  she 
has  been  able  to  do  in  other  ages  and  other  lands 
she  is  still  able  to  do  for  us  here  and  now ;  and 
though  we  rise  in  dignity  of  being  in  propor- 
tion to  our  power  to  live  in  thought  in  the  past 
and  the  future,  yet  since  life  is  chiefly  action, 
our  first  concern  is  with  the  present.  In  the 
Church  there  is  an  exhaustless  fountain-head  of 
spiritual  energy,  since  in  her,  as  the  Saviour 
has  taught  us  to  believe,  there  abides  the  very 
Spirit  of  God.  But  if  this  energy  is  to  mani- 
fest itself  in  the  world,  it  can  only  be  through 
God-like  men.  To  such  it  was  intrusted  in  the 
beginning,  by  such  it  was  spread  throughout 


CHURCH  AND  COUNTRY.  151 

the  earth,  and  by  such  alone  can  its  divine  heal- 
ing be  communicated  to  the  sick  and  hungering 
souls  of  the  people.  On  us  it  depends  whether 
the  sacred  ark  shall  ride  in  safety,  bearing  the 
holiest  and  most  priceless  treasures,  on  the  ris- 
ing waters  of  the  modern  democracy;  whether 
again  as  of  old,  the  priest  shall  not  merely  point 
the  way  to  heaven,  but  be  also  a  pioneer  in  all 
the  paths  that  lead  to  wider  knowledge,  truer 
freedom,  and  more  wholesome  living. 

Now,  all  the  great  things  that  mold  and 
transform  human  life  —  religion,  patriotism, 
friendship,  love,  devotion  to  heroic  men  and 
right  causes  —  must  be  cared  for  and  followed 
for  themselves,  and  with  all  one's  mind  and 
heart,  or  their  power  to  strengthen,  uplift,  and 
purify  is  lost.  Shall  we,  the  leaders  of  the 
Church  in  America,  be  able  to  turn  resolutely 
from  the  false  lights  of  momentary  success,  of 
material  progress,  of  pride  in  mere  numbers 
and  showy  buildings,  to  the  inner  sources  of 
power,  to  knowledge  and  wisdom,  to  purity 
and  love,  to  modesty  and  mildness?  Shall  we 
be  able  to  free  ourselves  from  the  awful  pres- 
sure of  a  public  opinion  which  believes  in  noth- 
ing but  money  —  and  shrewdness  as  a  means 
to  money  —  an  opinion  that 

"  Hangs  upon  us  with  a  weight 
Heavy  as  frost  and  deep  almost  as  life  "  ? 


152  SOCIALISM  AND   LABOR. 

Shall  we  be  able  to  reach  and  maintain  a 
living  and  passionate  faith  in  an  estate  higher 
than  that  of  men- — a  faith  which  shall  make 
us  reverent,  devout,  patient,  and  self-denying; 
which  shall  impel  us  to  desire  and  labor  for  the 
things  that  lead  to  life,  and  to  put  far  away  the 
things  that  lead  to  destruction?  If  so,  then  in 
making  ourselves  worthy  to  be  called  ministers 
of  Him  who  died  for  all,  we  shall  find  that  we 
have  become  capable  of  rendering  the  highest 
services  to  the  State  of  which  we  are  citizens. 

If  we  do  not  work  for  bread  with  our  hands, 
we  are  bound  under  penalty  of  becoming  crimi- 
nal, to  labor  with  brain  and  heart,  to  strengthen, 
purify,  and  enrich  human  life;  and  the  basest  of 
those  who  fail  in  this  are  the  false  shepherds  of 
souls,  who,  having  pledged  themselves  to  the 
care  and  nurture  of  the  spirit,  sink  into  indo- 
lence and  ignorance,  while  the  people  perish  of 
inanition  or  are  devoured  by  the  beast  of  prey 
that  lurks  in  each  one's  bosom.  There  must 
be  work  of  hand  that  men  may  live,  and  there 
must  be  work  of  brain  and  heart  that  they  may 
live  worthily  and  nobly.  It  is  not  necessary 
that  we  should  live,  but  it  is  necessary  that, 
being  alive,  we  should  live  well;  and  hence 
the  tasks  intrusted  to  the  scholars,  the  teachers, 
and  the  priests  of  a  people  are  the  highest  and 
most  indispensable.  The  desire  to  teach,  to 


CHURCH  AND   COUNTRY.  153 

teach  those  who  do  not  know  it,  the  truth  that 
is  freedom,  the  knowledge  that  is  power,  the 
wisdom  that  is  peace  and  joy,  lies  at  the  heart 
of  the  purest  and  divinest  yearnings  to  be  of 
help;  and  therefore  the  greatest  teachers  have 
been  and  are  the  chief  lovers  and  benefactors 
of  the  race. 

In  whom  should  this  yearning,  as  of  a  god, 
be  found  if  not  in  the  Catholic  priest  whose 
good  fortune  it  is  to  labor  for  the  salvation  of 
the  souls  and  the  temporal  welfare  of  men  in 
the  American  Republic? 

What  has  such  power  to  make  the  noblest 
efforts  at  once  possible  and  effectual  as  the  con- 
sciousness of  living  in  the  midst  of  a  free,  gen- 
erous, and  brave  people?  What  inducement  to 
make  ourselves  more  and  more  fit  for  the  work 
we  have  chosen  is  so  powerful  as  the  sense  of 
success  in  accomplishing  the  task?  What  is  so 
good  as  to  follow  after  high  aims  in  the  midst 
of  a  people  who  are  more  alive  than  men  are 
elsewhere  on  earth  ? 

In  many  ways  our  country  is  dear  to  men 
of  many  minds.  Like  a  most  richly  endowed 
soul,  it  has  gifts  for  all  who  are  not  unworthy. 
The  millions  who  have  been  bound  in  the  triple 
chains  of  servitude,  poverty,  and  ignorance  feel, 
as  they  put  their  feet  on  our  shores  and  breathe 
our  air,  that  the  night  is  past  and  the  dawn  is 


154  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

come.  Here  opportunity  beckons,  here  occa- 
sion waits,  here  hope  invites,  here  the  general 
condition  of  things  urges  us  to  make  ourselves 
men. 

Where  else  shall  we  find,  I  will  not  say,  so 
much  tolerance,  —  for  tolerance  implies  evil, 
implies  necessity,  implies  indifference,  —  but 
so  much  good-will,  so  much  loving-kindness, 
so  great  readiness  to  go  to  the  help  of  the 
weak  and  suffering?  Where  else  is  so  much 
light  thrown  upon  the  whole  life  of  the  people? 
And  however  offensive  and  even  harmful  the 
glare  which  the  public  press  flashes  upon  evil 
deeds  may  be,  yet  is  light  not  only  the  best 
policeman,  but  the  chief  purifier  and  quickener, 
the  most  fatal  foe  of  filth  and  disease,  whether 
of  body  or  of  soul.  Where  else  are  all  men  so 
given  to  the  ways  and  arts  of  peace,  so  little 
crazed  by  the  bray  of  trumpets  and  the  glitter 
of  steel,  so  little  blinded  by  the  flame  of  war- 
like glory,  which  is  fed  by  the  gases  of  the 
putrescent  bodies  of  the  slain? 

We  have  no  dynasty  to  defend  with  our 
blood,  no  empire  to  be  held  together  by  great 
standing  armies,  no  religious  quarrels  which 
we  think  it  possible  to  settle  by  wager  of 
battle;  yet  is  there  no  danger  that  we  shall  be- 
come effeminate,  for  it  requires  a  higher  and 
truer  courage  to  live  for  one's  country  in  a 


CHURCH  AND   CO  UNTR  Y.  155 

right  spirit  than  to  die  for  it  on  the  field  of 
carnage. 

Where  else  is  there  a  people  so  eager  to 
learn,  so  confident  in  the  power  of  education 
to  transform  individual  and  social  life,  so  quick 
to  test  whatever  new  thing  may  give  promise 
of  help?  Where  else  is  property  so  safe,  well- 
being  so  widely  diffused,  woman  so  educated 
and  honored?  Reasons  enough,  indeed,  these 
are  for  loving  our  country ;  but  those  who  love 
may  not  be  free  from  watchful  and  anxious 
care,  and  the  more  priceless  the  treasure,  the 
more  vigilant  should  be  its  guardians.  History 
is  full  of  the  stories  of  fallen  republics.  Those 
of  Athens  and  Rome  and  Venice  flourished, 
and  then  fell  to  ruin.  Shall  our  own  have  the 
same  fate,  or  shall  it,  obedient  to  the  heart 
prayer  and  inmost  desire  of  all  noble  souls, 
endure  while  its  mountains  stand  and  its  rivers 
flow? 

Only  truth  can  make  and  keep  individuals 
free,  and  righteousness  alone  can  serve  as  an 
everlasting  foundation  of  national  liberty.  In 
vain  our  numbers  multiply,  in  vain  our  wealth 
accumulates,  in  vain  our  lines  of  commerce 
weave  themselves  into  a  network  that  enmeshes 
the  globe,  if  we  ourselves  decay,  if  we  lose  firm 
grasp  of  the  spiritual  verities  which  constitute 
the  worth  and  honor  of  human  life.  There  are 


156  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

doubtless  signs  of  degeneracy  on  many  sides, 
nor  is  there  in  this  cause  for  surprise. 

We  have  been  successful  to  a  marvelous  de- 
gree; and  the  tendency  of  success  is  to  nourish 
conceit  and  to  undermine  good  sense.  We  have 
become  the  richest  of  the  nations ;  and  it  is  the 
tendency  of  wealth  to  corrupt  and  harden  the 
heart.  A  great  English  writer  says  of  Ameri- 
cans :  "  This  is  their  specialty ;  this  their  one 
gift  to  their  race  —  to  show  men  how  not  to 
worship,  how  never  to  be  ashamed  in  the  pres- 
ence of  anything  "  ;  and  in  so  far  as  there  is  truth 
in  his  words,  the  source  of  the  evil  is  to  be 
sought  for  chiefly  in  our  uninterrupted  success 
and  in  our  fabulous  wealth.  We  are  tempted 
to  consider  the  authority  of  gold  as  higher  than 
the  authority  of  God,  and  a  man's  circumstances 
as  more  important  than  the  man  himself. 

Are  not  the  foundations  of  the  home  grow- 
ing weaker,  and  has  not  our  popular  education 
failed  to  accomplish  much  that  we  had  most 
earnestly  hoped  for  and  expected?  "  The  idea 
of  a  general  education/'  says  Ruskin,  "  which 
is  to  fit  everybody  to  be  Emperor  of  Russia, 
and  provoke  a  boy,  whatever  he  be,  to  want  to 
be  something  else,  and  wherever  he  was  born 
to  think  it  a  disgrace  to  die,  is  the  most  entirely 
and  directly  diabolic  of  all  the  countless  stu- 
pidities into  which  the  British  nation  has  of 


CHURCH  AND   COUNTRY.  157 

late  been  betrayed  by  its  avarice  and  irreli- 
gion."  In  this  matter,  at  least,  there  seems  to 
be  something  like  an  alliance  between  the 
British  nation  and  the  American  people. 

But  true  thoughts  are  thoughts  that  inspire 
hope  and  courage;  and  whatever  leads  us  to 
think  meanly  of  ourselves  or  of  our  country  is 
to  be  put  away  as  evil.  Good  men,  like  good 
books,  are  those  that  fill  us  with  confidence  in 
the  triumph  of  truth  and  justice  and  love,  and 
so  help  us  to  conquer  in  the  battle  against 
doubt  and  sensuality  and  greed.  Great  souls 
are  brave  souls,  and  the  wise  understand  that 
it  is  better  to  find  fault  with  one's  self  than 
with  one's  country  or  one's  age.  There  is  no 
joy  but  in  strength — strength  of  body,  strength 
of  mind,  strength  of  heart.  Weakness  is  the 
true  opposite  of  virtue,  which,  if  it  be  not 
strength,  loses  its  name  and  essence.  If  we 
would  influence  and  improve  men,  if  we  would 
ourselves  grow  better,  we  should  cherish  brave 
thoughts,  speak  brave  words,  do  brave  deeds. 
If  we  are  lovers  and  doers  of  good,  we  must 
make  ourselves  also  amiable;  for  else  we  shall 
easily  teach  men  to  distrust  or  even  to  hate  the 
best  things.  The  unlovableness  of  the  pious 
does  more  harm  to  religion  than  the  mocking 
of  infidels. 

For  myself,  the  more  I  learn  to  know  the 


158  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

past,  the  more  confident  I  become  that  God  is 
still  leading  His  children  to  higher  and  holier 
things.  It  is  His  world,  and  not  the  devil's. 
He  is  with  us,  and  why  should  we  grow  de- 
spondent or  afraid  ?  I  envy  none  but  the  young, 
but  those  who  in  the  full  vigor  of  early  man- 
hood salute  the  century  that  now  opens  the 
gates  of  a  wider  and  fairer  future  for  mankind. 
Wordsworth,  standing  on  the  threshold  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  when  all  men's  minds  were 
aglow  with  thoughts  and  hopes  of  liberty  and 
fraternity,  exclaimed: 

"  Bliss  was  it  in  that  dawn  to  be  alive, 
But  to  be  young  was  very  heaven." 

Nor  was  he  wrongly  inspired;  for  though 
our  century  has  not  accomplished  all  that  the 
poet  dreamed,  yet  when  its  history  is  summed, 
it  shall  stand  forth  as  the  one  in  which  the 
Christian  peoples  made  the  greatest  and  most 
real  progress  in  knowledge,  in  freedom,  and  in 
power.  Had  we  nothing  to  set  to  its  account 
but  the  growth  and  consolidation  of  the  Ameri- 
can Republic  and  the  revivification  and  spread 
of  the  Catholic  religion  throughout  the  English- 
speaking  world,  it  were  enough.  And  when  I  am 
tempted  to  envy  the  young,  and  to  cry  out  that 
youth  be  given  me  again,  it  is  not  that  I  may 
be  bathed  afresh,  as  in  my  early  days,  in  the 


CHURCH  AND    COUNTRY.  v  159 


golden  light  of  new-born  worlds,  when  all  the 
hills  were  clothed  in  mystic  hues  and  all  the 
valleys  filled  with  flowers,  when  the  earth  it- 
self seemed  ready  to  break  forth  into  a  uni- 
versal shout  of  joy,  into  an  all-bewitching  smile 
of  beauty.  Not  for  this,  nor  for  the  free  heart 
and  the  mind  at  ease  that  recreate  a  paradise, 
would  I  be  young  again,  but  that  I  might  bend 
the  full  force  of  pristine  vigor  to  the  upbuild- 
ing of  my  own  being;  that  I  might  reduce  my 
whole  endowment  to  faculty,  and  having  made 
myself  a  man,  might  devote  myself  to  the  ser- 
vice of  the  Catholic  religion  and  the  American 
Republic  in  the  new  century,  which  bears  omens 
of  mightier  conflicts  and  nobler  triumphs  than 
men  have  ever  known. 


X. 

LABOR  AND   CAPITAL. 

*  I  VHE  people  of  America  have  many  things 
-*"  to  be  thankful  for.  The  material  re- 
sources of  our  country  are  so  great  that  as  yet 
neither  we  nor  the  world  at  large  have  been 
able  to  measure  their  extent.  Hidden  store- 
houses of  wealth  are  continually  being  re- 
vealed to  us.  We  are  energetic,  industrious, 
brave,  and  untiring.  We  are  convinced  of  the 
supremacy  of  mind  over  matter,  and  we  make 
ceaseless  and  increasing  efforts  to  educate  the 
spiritual  faculties  of  the  whole  people.  We  are 
averse  to  war  and  believe  that  disputes  be- 
tween nations,  as  between  individuals,  should 
be  settled  by  discussion  and  arbitration.  We 
are  opposed  to  standing  armies,  believing  that 
the  national  wealth  and  intelligence  should  be 
devoted  to  the  improvement  and  culture  of  the 
citizens,  and  not  to  conquest  and  destruction. 
We  have  no  powerful  neighbor  to  repel  or  over- 
throw. Our  comparative  exemption  from  war 
has  made  possible  the  rapid  development  of  our 


LABOR  AND   CAPITAL.  l6l 

country.  The  love  of  peace,  which  is  a  charac- 
teristic of  the  American  people,  manifests  itself 
also  in  religious  good-will  and  toleration.  As 
dynastic  wars  are  for  us  out  of  the  question, 
so  are  religious  wars.  The  spirit  of  forbear- 
ance and  helpfulness  manifests  itself  in  our 
customs  and  habits  as  in  our  legislation.  In 
no  other  country  is  property  more  secure;  in 
no  other  is  it  so  generally  diffused.  Nowhere 
else  is  opportunity  for  woman  as  for  man  so 
universal;  nowhere  is  there  such  faith  in  the 
national  destiny;  nowhere  has  the  fusion  of 
peoples  differing  in  many  and  important  re- 
spects been  brought  about  so  rapidly  or  so 
satisfactorily;  nowhere  are  the  multitudes  so 
eager  to  learn  or  so  quick  to  avail  themselves 
of  new  discoveries  and  inventions.  The  mil- 
lions from  foreign  lands  who  have  founded 
homes  here  are  making  other  millions  in  the 
Old  World  thankful  that  America  exists.  We 
are  indeed  a  source  of  hope  and  confidence  to 
all,  in  whatever  part  of  the  earth,  who  love  jus- 
tice and  liberty,  who  believe  in  a  higher  and 
more  blessed  social  and  religious  future  for 
mankind.  Already  we  are  the  possessors  of 
greater  wealth  than  any  other  nation  possesses 
or  has  ever  possessed;  and  though  a  few  men, 
whose  names  stare  us  in  the  face  from  the  pages 
of  the  newspapers,  have  fortunes  that  seem  al- 
ii 


1 62  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

most  fabulous,  there  is  diffused  among  the 
masses  of  the  people  a  well-being  and  comfort 
such  as  exists  in  no  other  land.  This  may  be 
perceived  in  the  housing  of  the  people,  in  their 
clothing,  in  the  wholesomeness  of  their  food, 
and  above  all  in  the  spirit  of  courage  and  hope- 
fulness which  pervades  our  whole  life. 

There  is  no  gulf  between  the  rich  and  the 
poor,  but  a  gradation  of  generally  distributed 
possessions. 

Nevertheless  it  is  obvious  that  when  there  is 
question  of  American  life,  a  merely  optimistic 
view  is  a  shallow  and  false  view.  There  are 
great  and  widespread  evils  among  us,  as  also 
tendencies  which  if  allowed  to  take  their  course 
will  lead  to  worse  evil.  TheVe  is  the  universal 
political  corruption.  There  is  the  diminished 
sense  of  the  sacredness  of  property.  There  is 
the  loosening  of  the  marriage  tie  and  the  sink- 
ing of  the  influence  of  the  home.  There  is  a 
weakening  of  the  power  to  apprehend  spiritual 
truth,  and  a  consequent  lowering  of  the  stand- 
ards of  value,  a  falling  away  from  the  vital 
principles  of  religion,  even  while  we  profess  to 
believe  in  religion.  There  is,  indeed,  enough 
and  more  than  enough  to  keep  all  who  cherish 
exalted  ideas  of  the  worth  of  human  life  and 
who  love  America  lowly-minded  and  watchful. 

One  of  the  most  certain  signs  of  decadence 


LABOR  AND   CAPITAL.  163 

is  a  failure  of  the  will,  and  one  might  think  that 
we  are  threatened  with  this.  Our  ability  to 
react  against  abuses  is  growing  feebler.  The 
social  organism  is  so  vast  and  so  complex  that 
it  seems  hopeless  to  attempt  to  interfere,  and 
so  we  permit  things  to  take  their  course,  abdi- 
cating the  freedom  and  the  power  of  will  in  the 
presence  of  an  idol  which  we  call  Destiny.  The 
more  public  opinion  is  shaped  by  the  ideals  of 
evolution  as  the  supreme  law  of  life,  the  less 
capable  we  become  of  bringing  reason  and  con- 
science to  bear  on  human  affairs,  of  recogniz- 
ing God's  presence  in  the  world,  and  holding 
to  truth  and  love  as  something  higher  and 
mightier  than  a  universe  of  matter. 

The  course  of  things  is,  indeed,  but  partially 
subject  to  human  control.  Human  progress 
nevertheless  depends  chiefly  on  human  intelli- 
gence and  energy,  which,  if  they  cannot  create, 
can  shape  and  guide.  The  one  means  of  pro- 
moting the  welfare  of  man  is  labor  or  effort. 
It  alone  can  develop  his  mind,  can  form  his 
character,  can  protect  him  from  the  blind  forces 
of  nature,  and  provide  for  him  what  is  neces- 
sary for  his  comfort  and  dignity.  The  end  of 
labor  is  the  strengthening  and  enrichment  of 
life,  and  the  best  measure  of  its  value  is  the 
effect  it  produces  on  man,  individually  and  col- 
lectively. The  end  is  not  abundance  of  riches, 


1 64  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

but  noble  life,  healthful,  pure,  intelligent,  brave, 
and  loving.  No  wealth  can  enrich  the  brutal 
and  the  base;  no  possessions  can  purchase  joy 
or  peace  for  the  slaves  of  appetite.  Where  right 
human  life  is  led,  —  a  life  of  faith,  hope,  and 
love,  of  thought  and  self-control,  of  industry 
and  self-denial,  —  to  live  with  as  few  material 
and  animal  wants  as  possible  ennobles  man. 
To  learn  to  live  with  as  little  as  possible  and 
to  waste  nothing  that  is  needful  is  the  sum  of 
practical  wisdom.  Socrates  was  happy  in  think- 
ing how  many  things  the  world  is  full  of  which 
he  did  not  need.  Simple  pleasures  are  the  best. 
Expensive  luxuries  harm  those  who  indulge  in 
them,  and  bring  misery  to  many.  The  highest 
ambition  springs  not  from  the  desire  to  rise  in 
the  world,  but  from  the  will  to  lead  an  honest 
helpful  life,  whatever  one's  circumstances.  One 
may  be  a  wise,  good,  and  happy  man,  or  a 
foolish,  wicked,  and  miserable  man,  whether 
rich  or  poor.  We  must  have  food,  shelter, 
and  clothing  that  we  may  live;  but  we  should 
live  not  to  be  fed  and  housed,  but  to  grow 
in  knowledge  and  virtue,  in  helpfulness  and 
holiness. 

For  the  most  fortunate  men  life  is  full  of 
difficulties  and  troubles ;  for  the  poorest  it  may 
be  filled  with  light,  peace,  and  blessedness. 

To  be  a  man  is  to  think  as  well  as  to  work, 


LABOR  AND   CAPITAL.  165 

and  the  more  intelligence  there  is  in  the  work 
the  better  shall  it  be  for  the  workers. 

Reason  as  well  as  religion  impels  those  who 
work  with  the  head  and  those  who  work  with 
the  hands  to  cooperation,  not  to  conflict.  The 
interests  of  both  are  best  served  when  they  are 
friends.  If  labor  is  not  directed  by  ability  it  is 
sterile.  The  notion  that  those  who  work  with 
the  hands  are  the  sole  producers  of  wealth  is  a 
fallacy  which  should  deceive  no  one.  The  vast 
increase  of  wealth  in  the  modern  world  of  in- 
dustry and  commerce  is  the  result  to  a  far 
greater  degree  of  ability  than  of  labor.  It  has 
been  produced  chiefly  by  the  comparatively  few 
men  of  exceptional  gifts,  who  have  invented 
machines,  organized  enterprises,  opened  mar- 
kets, and  thus  given  work  and  sustenance  to 
millions  who  but  for  them  would  never  have 
been  born.  Capital  itself,  which  makes  our 
great  undertakings  feasible,  is  largely  stored 
ability  —  ability  embodied  and  made  perma- 
nently fruitful  in  the  means  of  production  and 
distribution.  Columbus  did  not  sail  his  ships, 
but  had  it  not  been  for  his  genius  they  would 
not  have  sailed  at  all;  and  had  the  mutinous 
crew  thrown  him  overboard,  they  would  have 
drifted  to  death  and  the  New  World  had  not 
been  discovered.  The  natural  sources  of  wealth 
had  existed  in  America  for  countless  ages,  but 


1 66  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

the  savages  who  dwelt  here  lived  in  poverty  and 
wretchedness  because  they  lacked  men  of  ability 
to  lead  them  to  the  conquest  of  the  riches  of 
whose  existence  they  were  ignorant. 

Capital  is  like  an  exquisite  musical  instru- 
ment —  valueless  if  there  is  no  one  who  knows 
the  secret  of  its  uses,  and  the  men  of  ability 
who  know  how  to  use  capital  wisely  are  as  rare 
as  excellent  musicians.  Laborers  may  be  com- 
pared to  soldiers,  who  conquer  only  when  they 
are  disciplined,  equipped,  and  commanded  by 
men  of  ability.  It  has  been  calculated  that 
two-thirds  of  the  wealth  produced  in  the  nine- 
teenth century  were  due  to  ability,  and  but  one- 
third  to  the  work  of  those  who  toil  with  their 
hands.  This  applies  to  spiritual  not  less  than 
to  material  wealth.  The  great  advances  of 
mankind,  in  whatever  sphere,  have  been  made 
through  the  genius  and  under  the  leadership 
of  a  few  highly  endowed  individuals  —  the 
prophets  of  better  things,  the  subduers  of  the 
foes  of  man,  the  pioneers  of  progress.  Land 
and  labor  are  the  primary  sources  of  wealth, 
but  its  production  in  the  modern  world  is  due 
chiefly  to  ability,  working  with  capital,  which 
it  more  than  any  other  agency  has  created. 
Nothing  is  more  wonderful  than  the  hand,  but 
its  almost  miraculous  power  is  due  to  the  fact 
that  it  is  the  instrument  of  the  brain. 


LABOR  AND   CAPITAL.  l6/ 

In  former  times  the  men  of  ability  were 
drawn  to  devote  themselves  to  war  or  govern- 
ment or  philosophic  speculation,  but  now  more 
than  ever  before  they  throw  themselves  into  in- 
dustry and  commerce,  making  the  pursuit  of 
riches  their  life-aim.  This  is  the  career  which 
seems  to  promise  the  most  immediate  and  the 
most  substantial  results;  and  the  really  able 
men  are  so  few  and  the  work  to  be  done  is  so 
immeasurable  and  so  complex,  that  the  demand 
for  these  exceptional  individuals  is  greater  than 
the  supply.  Every  great  enterprise,  every  great 
business  concern,  needs  for  its  success  what  they 
alone  can  give.  Hence  they  command  salaries 
which  seem  to  be  exorbitant;  hence  they  grow 
rich,  become  capitalists  and  form  combinations 
of  capital,  which  appear  to  many  to  be  a  menace 
to  the  freedom  and  welfare  of  the  whole  people. 
Competition,  which  begins  as  a  struggle  for  ex- 
istence, finally  becomes  a  desire  to  crush  and 
dominate,  becomes  a  warfare,  which  if  less 
bloody  is  not  less  horrible  or  cruel  than  that 
which  is  carried  on  with  shot  and  shell.  As  in 
battle  the  generals,  however  humane  they  be, 
think  only  of  victory  and  are  heedless  of  the 
suffering  and  the  loss  of  life,  so  in  the  struggle 
for  industrial  and  commercial  supremacy,  the 
men  of  ability,  the  leaders  and  capitalists  are 
wholly  bent  on  the  attainment  of  their  ends, 


168  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

and  easily  lose  sight  of  the  principles  of  justice 
and  humanity. 

It  is  this  that  makes  the  organization  of 
workmen  into  labor-  and  trades-  unions  inevit- 
able and  indispensable.  The  consciousness  that 
if  they  do  not  protect  and  defend  themselves 
they  will  be  ground  by  the  wheels  of  a  vast 
machine  or  reduced  to  a  condition  little  better 
than  that  of  slaves,  compels  them  to  unite  lest 
they  be  deprived  of  the  common  rights  of  man. 
In  ancient  times  laborers  were  slaves,  it  is  not 
long  ago  since  multitudes  of  them  in  our  own 
country  were  slaves;  and  however  the  fact  be 
disguised,  the  natural  tendency  of  greed,  of  the 
love  and  pursuit  of  material  things  as  the  chief 
good  of  life,  is  to  deaden  the  sense  of  justice 
and  humanity,  to  make  the  strong,  the  men  of 
ability,  feel  that  they  have  the  right  to  do 
whatever  they  are  able  to  do.  They  are  not 
necessarily  unjust  or  cruel,  but  they  become  the 
victims  of  a  false  belief  and  the  agents  of  a 
system  which  is  as  pitiless  as  a  law  of  nature. 

One  of  the  chief  forces  by  which  this  ten- 
dency is  held  in  check  is  the  religious  principle 
and  feeling  that  men  are  the  children  of  God, 
and  have  inalienable  rights;  that  work  should 
enable  the  worker  to  lead  a  life  not  unworthy 
of  a  rational  being;  that  riches  which  are  pro- 
cured at  the  cost  of  human  misery  and  degra- 


LABOR  AND   CAPITAL.  169 

dation  are  accursed;  that  what  constitutes  the 
proper  value  of  individuals  and  of  nations  is 
spiritual  and  not  material ;  that  there  is  eternal 
wrath  in  store  for  all  who  trample  upon  moral 
and  intellectual  good  that  they  may  add  to  their 
possessions.  These  truths  are  accepted  by  the 
public  opinion  of  the  civilized  world,  and  hence 
there  is  a  general  sympathy  with  laborers  in 
their  efforts  to  obtain  justice  and  to  improve 
their  condition.  All  who  observe  and  reflect 
recognize  that  their  lot  is  hard,  that  they  bear 
an  undue  share  of  the  burdens  of  life,  that  they 
are  often  forced  to  do  work  which  is  destructive 
of  health  and  happiness,  and  that  they  are  ex- 
posed to  greater  vicissitudes  of  fortune  than 
others. 

All  this,  however,  would  accomplish  little  for 
their  improvement  if  they  themselves  remained 
indifferent,  if  they  did  not  organize,  if  they  did 
not  discuss  and  come  to  a  fuller  consciousness 
of  their  grievances,  if  they  did  not  by  strikes 
and  other  lawful  means  make  strenuous  efforts 
to  increase  their  wages  or  to  prevent  them  from 
falling,  if  they  did  not  agitate  for  fewer  hours 
of  work  and  whatever  else  may  give  them 
leisure  and  opportunity  to  cultivate  their  spirit- 
ual natures  and  thus  to  make  themselves  cap- 
able of  enjoying  life  in  a  rational  and  Christian 
way.  Economic  laws,  which  are  immutable, 


170  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

make  it  impossible  that  wages  should  rise  be- 
yond a  given  point,  or  that  wealth  should  be 
so  distributed  as  to  make  all  men  rich.  The 
multitude  are  poor  and  can  never  be  rich.  It 
is  indeed  fortunate  that  it  is  impossible  that  the 
masses  of  mankind  should  ever  be  able  to  lead 
an  idle  and  luxurious  life.  It  is  a  law  of  human 
nature  that  man  shall  work  and  abstain,  if  it 
is  to  be  well  with  him ;  that  to  do  nothing  and 
enjoy  much  is  impossible.  Political  Economy, 
like  government,  rests  on  a  basis  of  morality. 
Moral  character  alone  can  give  a  man  self-re- 
spect, courage,  hope,  cheerfulness,  and  power 
of  endurance.  Hence  the  laborers,  and  all  who 
identify  themselves  with  their  cause,  should 
have  a  care  first  of  all  that  they  be  true  men  — 
provident,  self-restrained,  kindly,  sober,  frugal, 
and  helpful ;  and  that  this  may  be  possible,  also 
religious.  The  foe  of  labor  is  not  capital,  but 
ignorance  and  vice.  In  the  whole  English- 
speaking  world,  at  least,  its  worst  enemy  is 
drink.  More  than  a  combination  of  all  em- 
ployers, the  saloon  has  power  to  impoverish 
and  degrade  workingmen.  In  their  own  ranks 
the  traitors  are  those  who  preach  irreligion  and 
anarchy.  The  influence  of  Christianity  has 
been  and  is  the  chief  power  which  has  brought 
the  world  to  recognize  the  rights  of  the  en- 
slaved, the  poor,  the  weak,  of  all  who  are  heavy- 


LABOR  AND   CAPITAL.  171 

laden  and  over-burdened.  It  aroused  and  it 
alone  can  sustain  enthusiasm  for  humanity.  If 
this  faith  could  die  out,  what  would  remain  but 
the  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  that  is,  of 
the  strongest,  the  most  unscrupulous,  the  most 
reckless  of  the  sufferings  and  sorrows  of  their 
fellow-men?  These  are  the  men  who  prosper 
among  savages,  in  barbarous  states,  and  in 
periods  of  anarchy. 

But  it  is  not  conceivable  that  the  civilized 
world  should  turn  from  the  principles  which 
Christ  proclaimed,  whose  development  and  dif- 
fusion must  in  the  end  substitute  for  universal 
competition  —  the  war  of  all  upon  all  —  the  co- 
operation of  all  with  all,  not  merely  or  chiefly 
for  the  winning  of  the  bread  that  nourishes  the 
body,  but  above  all  for  the  spread  of  the  higher 
life  of  truth  and  love,  of  purity  and  goodness. 
In  America,  assuredly,  we  have  good  reason  to 
take  a  hopeful  view  of  the  future.  No  foreign 
power  can  offer  hindrance  to  our  progress  in 
the  fulfillment  of  our  God-given  tasks,  which 
are  not  only  to  secure  equal  rights,  liberties,  and 
opportunities  to  all  the  people,  but  so  to  educate 
and  inspire  all  the  inhabitants  of  this  great  con- 
tinent that  they  may  all  work  together  to  shape 
here  a  nobler  manhood  and  womanhood  than 
the  world  has  ever  seen. 


XL 
WORK  AND  LEISURE. 

IFE  is  energy:  we  feel  ourselves  only  in 
•*-'  doing,  and  when  we  inquire  what  a  man's 
value  is  we  ask  what  is  his  performance.  The 
deed  is  the  proof  of  faith,  the  test  of  character, 
and  the  standard  of  worth.  To  do  nothing  is  to 
be  nobody,  and  to  have  done  is  to  have  been. 
True  work  fixes  attention,  develops  ability,  and 
enriches  life ;  it  strengthens  the  mind,  forms  the 
will,  and  inures  to  patience  and  endurance.  It 
is  what  we  do  and  suffer  to  overcome  nature's 
indifference  and  hostility  to  man's  well-being 
and  progress;  it  is  the  means  whereby  what  is 
not  ourselves  is  taken  hold  of  and  made  to  do 
us  service.  True  work,  then,  is  furtherance  of 
life,  and  it  cannot  be  rightly  understood  unless 
it  be  looked  at  in  this  light.  To  know  the  worth 
of  work  we  must  consider  first  of  all  what  is  its 
effect  upon  the  worker.  If  it  warps,  cripples, 
and  degrades  him  it  is  not  true  work,  though 
he  should  thereby  amass  vast  wealth  or  gain 
great  reputation.  That  work  is  best  which  helps 


WORK  AND  LEISURE.  173 

to  make  men  and  women  wise  and  virtuous; 
and  that  which  breeds  vice  is  worst,  is  little  better 
than  idleness,  which  is  evil  because  it  breeds 
vice.  The  political  and  social  conditions  which 
are  most  favorable  to  work  that  elevates  and 
enriches  and  purifies  human  life  approach 
nearest  to  the  ideal;  the  political  and  social 
conditions  which  involve  the  physical  deterio- 
ration and  the  mental  and  moral  degradation 
of  multitudes  are  barbarous,  and  unless  they  are 
improved  must  lead  to  the  ruin  of  the  State. 
From  this  point  of  view,  which  is  the  only  true 
point  of  view,  our  present  economic  and  com- 
mercial systems  are  subversive  of  civilization. 
They  sacrifice  men  to  money ;  wisdom  and  vir- 
tue to  cheap  production  and  the  amassing  of 
capital.  They  foster  greed  in  the  stronger  and 
hate  in  the  weaker.  They  drive  the  nations  to 
competitive  struggles  which  are  as  cruel  as  war, 
and  in  the  final  result  more  disastrous;  for 
their  tendency  is  to  make  the  rich  vulgar  and 
heartless,  and  the  poor  reckless  and  vicious.  As 
stratagems  and  lies  are  considered  lawful  in 
war,  so  in  the  warfare  of  commercial  compe- 
tition opinion  leans  to  the  view  that  whatever 
may  be  done  with  impunity  is  right.  The  adul- 
'teration  of  food  and  drink,  the  watering  of 
stocks,  the  bribing  of  legislators,  the  crushing 
of  weaker  concerns,  the  enforced  idleness  of 


174  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

thousands  who  are  thereby  driven  to  despair 
and  starvation,  are  not  looked  upon  as  lying 
within  the  domain  of  morals,  any  more  than  the 
shooting  of  man  in  battle  is  considered  a  ques- 
tion of  morality.  The  degradation  and  ruin 
of  innumerable  individuals  are  implications  of 
the  law  of  competition,  just  as  in  the  struggle 
for  existence  there  is  a  world-wide  crushing  and 
destruction  of  the  weak  by  the  strong.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  capitalists,  the  captains  in  the 
armies  of  laborers,  are,  under  the  present  sys- 
tem, driven  like  the  workmen  themselves.  The 
necessity  of  ceaseless  vigilance  and  effort  keeps 
them  under  continual  strain.  Like  those  they 
employ,  they  become  parts  of  a  machine,  and 
therefore  partial  and  mechanical  men.  The 
sense  of  inner  freedom  dies  within  them,  the 
source  of  the  purest  joy  runs  dry,  and  they  are 
made  incapable  of  thinking  great  thoughts  or 
of  walking  in  the  light  of  high  ideals.  They 
are  the  victims  of  their  own  success,  and,  hav- 
ing great  possessions,  are  poor  in  themselves. 
The  work,  then,  which  we  are  doing,  and  the 
conditions  under  which  we  are  doing  it,  whether 
we  be  rich  or  poor,  are  unfavorable  to  the  best 
kind  of  life. 

We  are  the  slaves  instead  of  being  the  masters 
of  our  work;  we  have  forgotten  that  work  is 
a  means  and  not  an  end ;  as  the  money  for  which 


WORK  AND   LEISURE.  175 

we  work  is  a  means  and  not  an  end.  Believing 
that  work  and  riches  are  the  ends  of  life,  we 
work  with  feverish  hurry,  and  our  greed  grows 
as  our  possessions  increase.  God,  says  Eurip- 
ides, hates  busy-bodies  and  those  who  do  too 
much.  We  are  too  busy,  we  do  too  much.  And 
the  temper  our  restless  activity  creates  makes 
us  incapable  of  leisure,  which  is  the  end  of 
work.  The  man  is  worth,  not  what  his  work  is 
worth,  but  what  his  leisure  is  worth.  By  his 
work  he  gains  a  livelihood,  but  his  leisure  is 
given  him  that  he  may  learn  how  to  live,  that 
he  may  acquire  a  taste  for  the  best  things,  may 
acquaint  himself  with  what  is  truest  and  most 
beautiful  in  literature  and  art,  in  science  and 
religion,  may  come  to  a  knowledge  of  how  he 
may  find  himself,  not  chiefly  in  the  narrow 
circles  of  his  private  interests,  but  in  the  wide 
world  of  noble  thought  and  generous  emotion. 
For  every  man  who  rises  above  the  vulgar  life 
is  divided  into  two  parts,  the  one  to  be  devoted 
to  means,  the  other  to  ends.  On  the  one  side 
he  places  the  things  of  practical  concern, — trade, 
business,  and  politics;  on  the  other  the  things 
which  are  ends  in  themselves,  —  the  upbuilding 
of  his  own  being  with  the  help  of  religion,  phil- 
osophy, science,  and  art.  Whoever  permits  the 
occupations  whereby  he  gains  a  livelihood  to 
absorb  his  whole  thought  and  energy  is  neces- 


SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

sarily  an  incomplete  man.  He  lacks  openness 
of  mind,  breadth  of  view,  the  sense  of  beauty, 
and  the  disinterested  love  of  knowledge.  His 
perception  of  spiritual  truth  is  dimmed,  and  he 
is  made  incapable  of  the  purest  and  most  gener- 
ous emotions.  To  give  him  something  of  all 
this,  leisure,  if  rightly  used,  may  serve;  and 
hence  I  say  the  man  is  worth  what  his  leisure 
is  worth. 

But  who  makes  a  wise  use  of  leisure?  The 
pleasures  to  which  it  is  devoted  are  dissipations 
rather  than  recreations.  The  theatre  might  be 
a  school  of  refinement  and  taste,  but  it  is,  in 
fact,  rather  a  school  of  coarseness  and  vulgarity. 
As  for  the  club,  Cicero  said,  nearly  two  thou- 
sand years  ago,  that  those  who  have  no  love  of 
study  join  clubs.  The  dinner  habit  is  as  fatal 
to  physical  and  moral  health  as  the  newspaper 
habit  is  to  intellectual  culture.  Sir  William 
Temple  thought  life  would  be  endurable  were  it 
not  for  its  pleasures;  and  so  our  busy  Ameri- 
cans feel  that  it  would  be  bearable  were  it  not 
for  its  leisures,  in  which  they  bore  and  are 
bored. 

As  for  those  who  do  the  rough  work  of  the 
world,  fewer  hours  of  toil  will  hardly  be  of  ben- 
efit to  them,  if  their  leisure  be  spent  in  saloons 
and  in  the  company  of  the  vicious.  Work 
must  be  done,  —  work  of  hand,  that  we  may 


WORK  AND  LEISURE. 

have  the  means  of  living ;  work  of  head,  that  our 
life  may  be  worth  having;  and  this  is  the  nobler 
work.  A  man's  importance  is  determined  by 
his  usefulness,  and  the  most  useful  are  not  those 
who  provide  food  for  the  body,  but  those  who 
nourish  and  exalt  the  spiritual  faculties ;  as  the 
greatest  people  is  not  the  richest  people,  but  the 
people  that  has  the  greatest  number  of  noble, 
generous,  fair,  and  enlightened  men  and  women. 
Such  men  and  women  are  found  only  where 
leisure  is  looked  upon  as  a  heavenly  gift,  as  an 
opportunity  to  upbuild  one's  being,  to  prepare 
one's  self  for  complete  living. 


12 


XII. 

THE   MYSTERY  OF  PAIN. 

Put  pain  from  out  the  world,  what  room  were  left 
For  thanks  to  God,  for  love  to  man  ? 

—  Browning. 

/TTNHERE  is  hope  and  courage  in  the  air  of 
-*•  America.  No  other  people  has  carried 
optimism  to  such  extremes.  We  refuse  to  listen 
to  talk  of  failure,  or  to  entertain  despondent 
thoughts,  holding  nothing  impossible.  This 
splendid  confidence  is  found  not  alone  in  our 
attitude  toward  material  things.  In  brief  time 
we  have  subdued  a  continent  and  amassed  in- 
credible wealth,  but  we  feel  certain  that  we  shall 
be  able  also  to  overcome  ignorance,  poverty, 
crime,  and  evil  of  whatever  kind.  We  believe 
that  this  is  God's  world  and  that  we  are  His 
most  fortunate  children.  Is  not  America  a 
happy  land,  where  good  and  better  days  are  now, 
and  yet  to  come? 

If  we  cannot  shut  our  eyes  to  sorrow  and 
misery  we  look  to  find  in  them  some  soul  of 
goodness.  As  darkness  is  light's  relief,  death 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  PAIN.  179 

life's  foil,  so  we  like  to  think  that  evil  exists 
that  we  may  be  impelled  to  learn  to  know  and 
love  the  truth  and  beauty  which  are  everywhere. 
In  our  optimism  there  is  doubtless  something 
of  the  Israelite's  satisfaction  with  this  present 
world,  of  his  delight  in  a  land  flowing  with  milk 
and  honey;  but  there  is  also  in  it  much  of  his 
moral  earnestness,  of  his  belief  in  righteous- 
ness, in  work  done  well  and  done  in  a  Godlike 
spirit.  We  are  not  dreamers,  but  doers;  and 
genuine  doers  are  brave  and  cheerful  and  con- 
fident. Those  who  feel  it  were  better  never  to 
have  been  born,  feel  too  that  to  do  nothing  is 
happiness.  But  for  us  he  who  does  nothing  is 
nobody ;  and  in  our  deepest  heart  we  understand 
that  those  alone  who  act  in  obedience  to  the 
voice  of  duty  really  do  anything  worth  while: 
the  essential  good  being  moral  and  religious, 
nothing  else  having  power  to  create  in  the 
human  breast  a  harmonious  world  or  to  give 
lasting  joy  to  man. 

The  things  which  have  value  are  innumer- 
able, and  the  lacking  of  any  of  them  we  may 
call  evil.  Whatever  satisfies  the  reason,  the 
heart,  the  imagination,  whatever  ministers  to 
health  and  comfort,  whatever  offers  opportunity 
to  increase  knowledge  or  power  has  worth.  The 
useful,  the  agreeable,  the  beautiful,  the  true  are 
valuable ;  but  that  which  is  indispensable,  with- 


ISO  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

out  which  all  else  is  vain,  is  moral  good,  what 
conscience  says  ought  to  be,  what  we  recognize 
as  duty. 

Duties  are  of  three  kinds:  duties  of  self- 
respect,  of  justice,  and  of  benevolence.  Self- 
respect  is  violated  by  lying  and  sensuality; 
justice  by  whatever  harms  the  rights  of  another, 
whether  rights  of  property  or  of  reputation; 
benevolence  by  failure  to  succor  our  fellows  in 
their  corporal  and  spiritual  needs.  To  be  a  man 
one  must  rise  above  merely  animal  existence, 
must  reverence  the  reason,  the  soul  which  makes 
him  human,  and  must  therefore  be  truthful, 
temperate,  and  chaste;  and  since  humanity  can 
come  into  being  and  prosper  only  in  society,  he 
must  fulfill  the  social  duties  of  justice  and  benev- 
olence. These  are  principles  which  all  men  ac- 
cept in  the  inner  sanctuary  of  conscience,  and 
against  which  only  those  who  are  blinded  by 
passion  or  led  astray  by  a  sophistical  spirit  will 
attempt  to  argue.  Remove  from  a  city  drunken- 
ness and  prostitution,  theft  and  dishonesty,  lying 
and  deceit,  the  hardness  and  inhumanity  which 
greed  and  sensuality  produce,  and  you  have  a 
happy  community  —  one  in  which  peace  and  or- 
der, self-respect  and  justice,  sympathy  and  lov- 
ing-kindness prevail;  one  in  which  woman  and 
the  child  are  held  in  honor,  in  which  old  age  is 
accompanied  by  reverence  and  service,  in  which 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  PAIN.  l8l 

the  poor  and  the  sick  are  relieved  and  consoled. 
And  yet  in  such  a  community  there  would  still 
be  evil,  there  would  still  be  suffering,  sorrow, 
and  death. 

Why,  then,  if  we  could  suppress  moral  evil 
would  the  mystery  of  pain  still  remain?  If  a 
wholly  satisfactory  explanation  of  this  problem 
could  be  given,  all  the  weary  weight  of  this  un- 
intelligible world  would  be  lifted  from  our 
minds  and  hearts. 

If  it  is  not  possible  to  sweep  this  black  cloud 
from  the  heaven  of  human  consciousness,  we 
may  at  least  see  rays  of  light  gleam  through  its 
rifts.  If  we  look,  first  of  all,  into  its  impene- 
trable centre  where  the  darkness  is  most  dense, 
into  the  realms  of  moral  evil,  of  sin,  we  may 
understand  that  in  a  world  in  which  no  one  could 
do  wrong,  no  one  could  do  right;  that  if  men 
are  to  have  freedom  of  will,  —  without  which 
they  would  not  be  men,  —  they  must  have  the 
power  to  abuse  it.  What  is  the  highest  thing  in 
the  world,  that  which  properly  constitutes  hu- 
manity ?  It  is  character.  Now  character  cannot 
be  created,  it  must  be  formed  in  the  midst  of 
temptation  and  struggle,  in  the  heat  of  battle, 
where,  if  there  is  victory,  there  must  also  be  the 
possibility  of  defeat.  God  may  create  an  inno- 
cent being,  but  not  a  perfect  character.  That 
human  goodness  may  come  forth  in  full  power 


1 82  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

and  form  there  must  be  free  choice,  there  must 
be  the  conflict  by  which  alone  moral  energy  is 
produced ;  and  if  conflict,  therefore  pain,  suffer- 
ing, and  failure.  And  is  not  a  world  in  which 
there  is  much  wickedness  and  sorrow,  but 
which  is  also  filled  with  heroic  and  Godlike  men 
and  women,  higher  than  one  in  which  there 
should  be  nothing  superior  to  the  innocence  and 
ignorance  of  childish  natures? 

Of  the  Captain  of  our  Salvation,  the  inspired 
word  says :  He  was  made  perfect  through  suf- 
ferings. There  is  indeed  no  other  way  that  leads 
to  moral  excellence.  Self-denial,  the  bearing  of 
the  cross,  the  wearing  of  the  thorny  crown,  the 
gibes  and  mocks  of  the  rabble,  the  consenting  to 
death  rather  than  to  wrong  —  these  are  the 
means  whereby  character  is  built,  whereby  saint- 
liness  is  made  to  spring  in  the  soul,  whereby  the 
world  is  redeemed.  We  are  all  apprentices,  and 
suffering  is  our  great  teacher  and  master.  A 
man  is  worth  what  he  has  borne.  They  who 
have  not  passed  nights  of  bitter  anguish,  who 
have  not  moistened  their  bread  with  tears,  know 
not  the  heavenly  powers.  None  are  wise  who 
have  not  received  the  baptism  of  sorrow.  In 
luxurious  climates,  where  man  has  nothing  to 
do  but  to  eat  and  sleep,  he  is  little  more  than  an 
animal. 

.What  is  the  universal  law  of  progress  but 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  PAIN.  183 

struggle,  effort,  labor?  And  what  is  this  but 
pain?  If  there  were  no  obstacles  how  should 
there  be  energy  and  courage?  If  Nature  pre- 
sented no  difficulties  how  should  man  be  made 
intelligent?  Pain  is  danger's  signal.  It  floats 
above  the  entrance  of  the  haunts  of  vice  and 
shame;  it  waves  for  the  glutton,  the  drunkard, 
the  adulterer,  the  tyrant,  for  criminals  of  every 
type.  On  it  is  inscribed  in  letters  which  none 
but  the  blind  can  fail  to  read :  The  wages  of  sin 
is  death. 

Suffering  is  the  mother  of  wisdom,  of  pity, 
of  mercy,  of  the  most  generous  moods  and  the 
most  tender  emotions.  They  who  have  never 
suffered  are  unfeeling  as  well  as  ignorant.  The 
young  are  cruel  because  they  have  not  been 
civilized  by  sorrow;  and  they  whom  sorrow 
hardens  or  depraves  were  ignoble  from  the 
start.  What  joy  is  there,  higher  than  that  of 
children,  which  does  not  derive  its  fine  flavor 
from  the  memory  of  hardships  borne  and  diffi- 
culties overcome?  We  cannot  feel  that  any- 
thing is  properly  ours  unless  we  have  made  it 
our  own,  by  industry,  patience,  perseverance, 
and  foresight,  by  self-denial  and  courage. 
Nothing  we  inherit  rightly  belongs  to  us  unless 
we  re-act  upon  it,  suffer  for  it. 

Evil  is  the  foe  we  have  to  fight,  and  by  fight- 
ing, convert  to  means  of  good.  By  such  combat 


1 84  SOCIALISM  AND   LABOR.  * 

alone  is  advance  made  possible.  All  progress, 
intellectual,  moral,  and  material,  is  through 
conflict  with  ignorance,  passion,  and  the  obsti- 
nacy of  nature.  From  less  to  more,  from  evil 
to  good.  This  is  the  law  of  human  develop- 
ment, individual  and  social. 

But  it  is  in  vain  that  we  appeal  to  philosophy 
to  persuade  ourselves  that  evil  is  but  a  means  to 
good,  and  that  all  is  well.  In  such  a  world  as 
this,  indeed,  good  and  ill  are  so  intertwined  and 
blended,  that  we  cannot  imagine  them  existing 
in  separateness ;  but  none  the  less  they  are  dis- 
tinct and  opposite.  The  ideal  which  must  for- 
ever invite  us  is  that  of  a  society  in  which  there 
shall  be  no  sin  nor  sorrow  nor  wrong.  To  the 
coming  of  this  kingdom  of  heaven  on  earth  the 
noblest  look;  to  bring  it  nearer  the  most  gen- 
erous devote  all  their  strength.  This  is  their 
aim,  whether  they  put  their  trust  in  the  im- 
provements of  institutions  or  in  evolution  or 
in  education  or  in  religion.  The  object  is  to 
overcome  and  suppress  whatever  is  hurtful  to 
man,  for  we  measure  all  values  by  human  stan- 
dards; and  as  we  should  not  think  storms, 
earthquakes,  and  floods  evil,  if  they  wrought 
no  harm  to  man,  so  we  could  not  believe  God 
himself  to  be  good  if  He  were  not  good  to  man. 

Wide  and  deep  as  life  is  life's  curse  and  woe. 
Millions  still  believe  that  those  alone  are  wise 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  PAIN.  185 

who  strive  to  destroy  the  will  to  live,  and  who 
desire  to  sink  back  into  the  unconscious;  that 
the  best  is  not  to  be  born,  or  being  born,  at  once 
to  die.  But  this  religion  of  despair  is  as  foreign 
to  Christian  souls  as  it  is  to  right  reason.  We 
know  well  all  life's  sadness,  all  its  vanity  and 
misery ;  but  we  know  also  its  joy  and  sweetness, 
the  infinite  possibilities  it  opens  to  us  since  the 
Eternal  Father  is  but  the  perfect  Life. 

In  our  great  cities  we  see  the  ruin  wrought 
by  heartlessness  and  greed,  by  drunkenness  and 
prostitution,  by  corrupt  politicians  and  gamblers, 
desolation  worse  than  that  caused  by  famine, 
pest,  and  war  (for  the  moral  evil  is  blacker  and 
the  causes  more  permanent)  ;  yet  are  we  not 
disheartened  but  rather  incited  to  new  efforts 
to  save  bodies  and  souls  from  the  human  devils, 
whose  existence  no  man  or  woman  can  doubt. 
They  are  the  foes  of  life,  and  we  are  life's  lovers 
and  defenders.  As  they  help  the  animal  and  the 
fiend  in  the  breast  to  kill  the  man,  we  appeal 
to  the  man  to  stand  forth  a  living  soul,  breathed 
on  by  God. 

The  opportunities  of  laymen  for  religious 
work  are  in  some  respects  greater  than  those 
of  priests.  In  the  manifold  relations  they  have 
with  one  another,  in  their  social  intercourse,  in 
their  business,  means  for  doing  good  are  given 
them  which  are  granted  more  sparingly  to  the 


1 86  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

clergyman.  If  we  trace  the  history  of  conver- 
sions, we  shall  find  in  many  instances  that  they 
are  due  to  the  silent  influence  of  a  layman  or  of 
some  gentle  and  pure-hearted  woman.  How 
often  have  churches  and  schools  been  established 
because  two  or  three  devoted  families  have  be- 
lieved and  made  it  possible.  One  might  think  it 
almost  tragical  that  the  masses  should  be  shut 
out  from  the  world  of  high  thought  and  noble 
emotion  which  lies  in  the  great  literatures;  but 
is  it  not  still  more  tragical  that  the  multitudes 
who  heard  Jesus  gladly,  who  are  ahungered  and 
athirst  for  God,  should  be  so  little  acquainted 
with  the  wealth  of  joy  and  love  and  strength 
there  is  in  Catholic  faith? 

This  must  be  so,  so  long  as  they  remain  but 
passive  members  of  the  Church  —  of  the  Church 
which  needs  the  hearts  and  minds  and  energies 
of  all  its  children,  whose  welfare  and  progress 
depend  on  the  moral  condition  and  spiritual  ac- 
tivity, not  of  the  priesthood  alone,  but  of  all 
Catholics.  It  is  one  of  the  glories  of  America 
that  here  every  man  and  woman  may,  if  they 
will,  find  fruitful  work  to  do.  This  is  one  of 
the  things  that  make  it  the  most  attractive  of 
all  lands,  drawing  to  itself  the  millions  from  all 
the  earth.  In  the  Catholic  Church,  too,  there  is 
work  for  every  man  and  woman ;  and  if  oppor- 
tunity is  denied  to  anyone,  it  is  not  because  the 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  PAIN.  1 87 

Church  is  not  wide  and  great  and  rich  enough, 
endowed  as  she  is  with  the  treasures  of  the 
mind  and  heart  of  Christ,  but  because  those 
who  happen  for  the  time  to  shape  her  course 
and  policy,  are  narrow  and  unintelligent.  A 
more  living  participation  of  all  Catholics  in  the 
work  of  the  Church  is  one  of  our  most  urgent 
needs,  and  whoever  might  have  power  to  awaken 
in  them  a  longing  for  this  larger  and  higher 
life,  and  open  a  way  for  them  in  the  Church  to 
exercise  an  influence  in  the  things  which  concern 
man's  permanent  and  most  essential  interests  is 
the  leader  whom  we  should  all  hail  with  delight 
and  follow  with  enthusiasm.  What  brilliant 
examples  of  enlightened  and  beneficent  lay  ac- 
tion in  Catholic  affairs  we  have  had  in  the  nine- 
teenth century!  It  was  O'Connell  who  led  the 
Catholics  of  Ireland,  and  I  may  say  of  the  Eng- 
lish-speaking world,  out  of  the  bondage  of  the 
penal  laws.  Mallinkrodt  and  Windthorst  were 
the  captains  of  the  hosts  that  triumphed  in  the 
Kultur  Kampf.  Goerres  more  than  any  other 
man  brought  about  the  Catholic  revival  in  Ger- 
many nearly  a  hundred  years  ago.  In  France 
Joseph  de  Maistre  and  Chateaubriand  reawak- 
ened enthusiasm  for  the  Church  which  seemed 
to  have  perished  in  the  general  ruin  wrought  by 
the  Revolution.  Brownson  is  the  most  vigorous 
writer  who  has  advocated  Catholic  principles 


1 88  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

in  America.  In  England  Dr.  Ward,  the  most 
loyal  and  devoted  of  believers,  surpasses  Car- 
dinal Newman  in  metaphysical  insight  and  in 
logical  cogency.  How  nobly  Ozanam  and  Mon- 
talembert  served  the  cause  of  religion!  What 
these  have  done,  why  should  not  many  do,  ac- 
cording to  the  measure  of  their  gifts? 


XIII. 

AN  ORATOR  AND  LOVER  OF  JUSTICE. 

[Address  delivered  at  the  Altgeld  Memorial  Meeting, 
April  20,  1902.] 

'  I  VHE  disinterested  sympathy  which  we  feel 
-••  for  genuine  men  is  a  testimony  to  our 
own  worth,  for  it  proves  our  faith  in  character 
as  the  paramount  good,  the  solid  foundation  of 
man's  likeness  to  God.  When  we  think  of  the 
dead  whom  we  have  known  and  loved,  we  think 
not  of  their  strength  or  beauty  of  body,  not 
of  their  wealth  or  position,  not  of  the  circum- 
stances of  their  lives,  but  we  think  of  the  self 
that  made  them  what  they  were  —  of  their  spirit, 
of  the  intellectual  and  moral  habits  which  made 
them  wise,  brave,  true,  loving,  and  helpful. 
They  may  have  lived  in  poverty,  in  feeble 
health,  in  prison;  they  may  have  suffered  cal- 
umny and  persecution;  they  may  have  died  as 
malefactors;  but  if  in  them  there  was  a  divine 
something,  an  utter  devotion  to  any  vital  truth 
or  principle,  a  sacred  and  disinterested  enthu- 
siasm for  some  good  cause,  an  unwavering  and 
unwearying  pursuit  of  ends  which  are  forever 


SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

right,  their  memory  is  safe.  The  clouds  shall 
break  away  and  the  light  which  guided  them 
shall  shine  for  thousands;  and  even  their  ene- 
mies shall  learn  to  admire  and  be  grateful. 

In  assembling  to  honor  the  memory  of  Gov- 
ernor Altgeld,  to  profess  our  faith  in  his  per- 
sonal worth  and  in  the  value  of  what  he  has 
said  and  done,  we  honor  ourselves,  for  there  is 
no  better  proof  of  noble  nature  than  apprecia- 
tiveness  of  noble  men. 

To  be  drawn  to  a  genuine  man  it  is  not  neces- 
sary that  without  reserve  we  accept  his  opinions 
or  approve  all  his  actions.  All  that  is  required 
is  faith  in  his  intelligence,  his  honesty,  his  cour- 
age, his  good-will,  his  disinterestedness.  It  is 
better  to  be  wrong,  inspired  by  the  sense  and 
love  of  right  than  to  be  right,  impelled  by 
motives  of  policy  and  the  worship  of  vulgar 
success. 

Altgeld  doubtless  had  the  qualities  which 
make  men  interesting  and  give  them  influence 
over  their  fellows.  His  aims  were  high,  and 
the  industry  and  perseverance  with  which  he 
pursued  them  were  altogether  exceptional. 

He  was  eager,  all-earnest,  untiring,  self-for- 
getful, and  devoted.  He  feared  no  foe,  shrank 
from  no  obloquy,  turned  aside  from  no  danger. 
Though  a  politician,  he  was  without  policy, 
never  asking  himself  what  might  be  expedient, 


AN  ORATOR  AND  LOVER   OF  JUSTICE.     \g\ 

but  looking  only  to  what  he  believed  to  be  true, 
just,  and  honorable.  Though  born  in  Europe, 
no  other  public  man  of  his  day  was  so  genuinely 
and  so  thoroughly  American.  No  question  that 
concerned  the  general  welfare  eluded  his  alert 
mind.  His  eye  was  everywhere,  and  saw  every- 
where, through  shams  and  shows  into  the  heart 
of  things.  He  had  a  fine  scorn  of  mere  wealth, 
title,  and  position,  and  would  have  taken  delight 
in  a  beggar  who  might  have  had  power  to  make 
him  wiser  or  better.  He  abhorred  cant,  pre- 
tense, hypocrisy,  and  lies.  He  would  not  have 
flattered  a  king  for  his  crown,  nor  a  plutocrat 
for  all  his  gold.  If  a  cause  was  just  it  com- 
mended itself  to  him  all  the  more  because  it  was 
unpopular.  Like  all  genuine  men,  he  was 
modest  and  without  conceit.  No  honors  and 
no  office  could  rob  him  of  his  plain  and  simple 
manners.  A  farmer's  boy,  a  soldier,  a  lawyer, 
a  politician,  a  governor,  he  compelled  every  sit- 
uation in  which  he  found  himself  to  minister  to 
the  enlargement  of  his  mind  and  the  molding 
of  his  character.  Deprived  of  the  opportunity 
of  early  education,  he  developed  the  mental  self- 
activity  which  is  the  only  means  of  mental  cul- 
ture, and  his  intellectual  curiosity  became  at 
once  comprehensive  and  discriminating.  No 
other  politician  among  us  has  been  so  attracted 
to  the  things  of  the  mind.  Without  a  knowl- 


192  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

edge  of  the  classical  languages,  he  was  fasci- 
nated by  the  classical  literatures.  Ability,  talent, 
genius,  character,  were  what  he  most  admired. 
No  other  public  man  in  our  country  has  written 
anything  that  I  should  so  gladly  commend  to  the 
perusal  and  study  of  our  youth  as  Altgeld's 
"  Essay  on  Oratory,"  which  he  published  but  a 
year  ago.  If  we  make  certain  reservations  with 
regard  to  the  style,  it  has  everything  to  stamp 
it  a  classical  treatise  on  the  subject.  In  this 
brief  composition  he  reveals  himself  more  com- 
pletely than  in  anything  else  he  has  written. 
We  have  here  the  passionate  lover  of  eloquence, 
one  whose  thoughts  are  as  urgent  as  the  growth 
of  wings,  who,  believing  in  the  healing  virtue 
of  the  truth  he  knows  and  loves,  would  com- 
municate it  with  such  directness,  force,  persua- 
siveness, and  charm,  that  all  shall  be  compelled 
to  hearken  and  become  partakers  of  the  divine 
gifts.  For  him  oratory  is  the  greatest  of  the  arts 
—  greater  than  music,  than  poetry,  than  paint- 
ing, than  sculpture.  The  orator  must  gather 
into  unity  and  harmony  all  that  other  artists 
achieve  separately  —  must  be  at  once  musician, 
painter,  poet,  sculptor,  architect;  must  be  able 
to  take  the  human  mind  and  heart  and  imagina- 
tion for  his  instrument  and  play  upon  it  all  the 
infinite  divine  cadences  of  rhythm  and  reason. 
He  must  stand  forth  before  men  as  a  man  clothed 


AN  ORATOR  AND  LOVER   OF  JUSTICE.     193 

with  the  resonance  of  the  thunder-crash  and  with 
the  searching  power  of  the  forked  lightning; 
must  sing  to  his  audience  and  command  them 
and  subdue  them  to  his  every  mood  and  thought ; 
must  have  power  to  transport  them  into  the 
midst  of  sublime  scenes,  of  tumultuous  oceans, 
of  white  and  eternally  serene  mountain  peaks; 
he  must  know  all  the  melodies  that  soothe  like 
the  lullabies  of  mothers ;  must  be  able  to  plead 
as  only  love  can  plead,  —  to  rouse  like  a  clarion's 
note;  must  be  able  to  find  his  way  through  the 
labyrinthian  windings  of  the  heart  of  man,  with 
all  its  passions  and  prejudices,  and  issue  forth 
heralded  as  a  conqueror.  His  words  must  be 
as  full  of  music  as  a  poet' s,  as  clear-cut  as  a 
statue,  as  symmetrical  as  the  noblest  monument, 
as  rightly  ordered  as  an  army  in  battle  array; 
his  thought  must  unfold  itself  like  the  budding 
leaves  and  the  blossoming  flowers ;  and  from  the 
centre  and  heart  of  it  all  he  must  rise  and  reveal 
himself,  not  as  an  actor  but  as  a  man  and  mes- 
senger sent  by  God  to  proclaim  truth  and  vindi- 
cate the  right.  He  must  have  a  knowledge  of 
history,  of  literature,  of  religion,  of  science,  of 
the  world.  He  must  be  all  alive  with  the  sub- 
ject he  discusses.  If  his  thoughts  be  not  new, 
they  must  glow  with  a  light  not  seen  before; 
and  they  must  be  pure  and  high  that  they  may 
appeal  to  what  is  best  in  man.  He  must  utter, 
13 


194  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

not  what  the  arithmetical  understanding  would 
suggest,  but  what  the  soul  would  speak  to  souls. 
His  language  must  be  beautiful;  his  words 
simple,  chaste,  and  crystalline ;  his  phrases  must 
sparkle  and  glow  like  jewels  on  the  brow  of 
beauty.  But  he  must  ever  bear  in  mind  that 
mere  vesture  can  not  hide  the  unreality  and 
vacancy  of  what  is  false  and  vulgar.  Right 
words  are  born  of  true  thoughts;  and  true 
thoughts  of  noble  life.  Those  alone  who  take 
infinite  pains  can  hope  to  become  orators.  There 
is  no  seeming  trifle  which  may  be  neglected, 
for  perfection  is  the  result  of  attention  to  little 
things.  He  who  would  excel  must  inure  himself 
to  the  labor  of  writing  and  rewriting  what  he 
would  utter.  The  pen  is  to  the  mind  what  the 
plough  is  to  the  field.  Ploughs  do  not  sow  the 
seed,  but  without  the  culture  they  give  it  will 
not  thrive  and  yield  rich  harvest,  however  fertile 
the  soil.  When  meditation  and  composition 
shall  have  made  him  familiar  with  every  phase 
of  his  subject,  lucid  order,  accurate  expression, 
and  copious  language  will  come  as  the  fountains 
burst  and  leap  in  spring.  Having  aroused  and 
illumined  his  own  spiritual  being,  he  will  have 
a  message  and  the  skill  rightly  to  deliver  it  to 
his  audience;  and  not  to  them  only,  but  to  the 
wider  world  to  which  the  wings  of  the  press 
shall  bear  his  words. 


AN  ORATOR  AND   LOVER   OF  JUSTICE.     195 

The  public-speaking  which  has  politics  and 
business  for  its  subject  is  useful  and  important, 
but  Fame  blows  not  her  trumpet  above  the 
heads  of  those  who  do  this  work.  They  are 
talkers,  not  orators ;  fortunate  if  they  talk  logi- 
cally, forcibly,  to  the  point,  while  they  keep 
themselves  free  from  slang  and  other  offense 
against  the  laws  of  speech.  But  he  who  would 
utter  memorable  things  in  perfect  form  must 
dwell  in  higher  regions  where  gleams  the  light 
of  ideal  aims  and  ends;  must  think  no  labor 
too  great,  no  self-denial  too  hard,  if  it  help  him 
to  become  a  master.  Like  the  mighty  Grecian, 
he  must  love  solitude,  be  willing,  if  need  be, 
to  dwell  in  caves  by  the  resounding  shores  of 
the  loud  ocean;  must  take  for  his  companions 
the  immortal  minds  who  have  left  record  of 
themselves  in  books.  He  must  abstain,  train 
himself  like  an  athlete,  and  accustom  himself 
to  all  exercises  that  invigorate  and  sharpen  the 
intellect  or  harden  and  supple  the  body.  He 
must  stand  aloof  from  the  crowds  and  despise 
the  applause  of  the  vulgar  and  the  notoriety 
which  is  within  the  reach  of  criminals  and  prize- 
fighters. He  must  be  wholly  serious  and  sincere 
and  keep  his  conscience  pure,  though  he  have 
not  bread  to  eat.  Great  manhood  alone  can 
make  great  oratory  possible.  Above  all,  the 
orator  must  be  a  lover  of  truth  and  justice.  His 


196  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

sympathies  must  go  forth  to  the  toilers  who  do 
the  world's  work  and  are  God's  children.  Wher- 
ever there  is  oppression  and  wrong,  he  must  be 
ready  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  to  defend  and 
make  good. 

All  this  springs  from  the  purest  spirit  of 
Altgeld's  life.  He  himself  lacked  some  of  the 
important  qualities  which  contribute  to  a  public 
speaker's  success  and  eminence.  His  presence 
was  not  commanding;  his  voice  lacked  sonor- 
ity, modulation,  and  persuasiveness ;  his  gesticu- 
lation was  awkward  and  constrained;  his  style 
was  unpolished;  his  imagination  prosaic;  his 
literary  culture  defective.  He  had  not  the 
scholar's  fine  insight  and  thorough  knowledge 
of  the  best  that  has  been  thought  and  said ;  and 
yet  withal  he  was  more  truly  an  orator  than 
almost  any  other  public  man  of  his  day.  Elo- 
quence lies  not  in  words  and  manner,  but  in  the 
man  himself;  and  Altgeld  was  all  athrill  with 
the  passion,  earnestness,  and  emotion  which 
awaken  and  fix  attention  while  they  create  inter- 
est. It  was  not  merely  the  things  he  believed  in, 
admired,  and  loved,  but  rather  the  thoroughness 
and  intensity  of  his  convictions,  that  lifted  him 
to  higher  planes  of  thought  and  feeling,  and 
gave  to  his  utterances  a  significance  and  charm 
which  are  beyond  the  reach  of  rhetoricians  and 
demagogues.  With  all  his  heart  he  loved  truth 


AN  ORATOR  AND  LOVER   OF  JUSTICE.     197 

and  hated  lies ;  loved  justice  and  hated  iniquity. 
As  he  was  capable  of  giving  his  life  for  what 
he  held  to  be  right,  so  had  he  infinite  power  of 
scorn  for  tricksters  and  spoilsmen,  for  palterers 
and  beggars  of  the  approval  of  men.  He  knew 
the  blessedness  of  being  hated  and  calumniated 
for  fidelity  to  conscience.  The  best  men  are 
made  great  by  the  obstacles  they  surmount,  by 
the  enemies  they  withstand.  Nearly  all  our 
speakers  tread  the  paths  of  dalliance,  hold  their 
ears  to  the  ground  to  catch  the  murmur  of  the 
crowd,  make  brave  shots  at  safe  objects,  apolo- 
gize if  by  chance  they  uttef  the  naked  truth; 
but  here  was  one  for  whom  right  and  wrong 
are  parted  by  eternal  laws,  for  whom  compro- 
mise is  treason,  and  connivance  apostasy  from 
God  and  the  soul.  Pallid,  feeble  in  body,  over- 
worked, and  overwrought  by  the  intensity  of  his 
own  nature  and  too  eager  mind,  he  faced  corrup- 
tion and  a  hostile  opinion  begotten  of  the  spirit 
of  Mammonites  and  time-servers  with  the  heroic 
courage  of  confessors  and  martyrs.  He  knew 
better  than  anyone  that  throughout  America 
and  Europe  his  name  was  associated  with  doc- 
trines and  practices  which  he  abhorred,  that  he 
was  a  safe  mark  for  the  conscienceless  fling  of 
every  hireling  of  the  press,  that  to  be  his  friend 
was  to  incur  suspicion  of  not  being  respectable, 
but  he  faltered  not;  and  though  fallen  on  evil 


198  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

days  and  slandered  by  evil  tongues,  though  over- 
taken by  poverty  and  sneered  at  by  the  idolaters 
of  success,  he  continued  to  confront  with  daunt- 
less courage  all  the  fosterers  of  lies  and  corrup- 
tion, all  the  contrivers  of  oppression  and  wrong, 
all  the  apologists  of  conquest  and  inhumanity. 
He  had  a  heart  as  tender  as  a  woman's ;  a  soul 
as  dauntless  as  a  hero's.  Whatever  concerned 
the  poor,  the  weak,  the  disinherited,  had  his 
earnest  attention  and  sympathies.  His  faith 
in  the  people  was  profound,  and  he  believed  that 
democratic  government  may  be  so  organized  and 
administered  as  to  make  it  a  blessing  to  all,  and 
first  of  all  to  those  who  most  need  protection 
and  fair  opportunity  because  they  are  the  most 
defenseless  and  the  most  easily  wronged.  He 
studied  the  question  of  education,  and  thoroughly 
understood  that  liberty  of  teaching  is  the  foun- 
dation on  which  all  our  other  liberties  rest.  He 
did  not,  I  think,  sufficiently  understand  —  nor 
has  any  other  American  statesman  sufficiently 
understood  —  that  if  education  does  not  form 
character  and  promote  conduct,  it  fails  in  the 
most  vital  point.  Intelligence  is  not  enough ;  it 
is  not  the  most  indispensable  thing  in  human 
life,  individual  or  social ;  but  when  one  considers 
the  infinite  misery  and  ruin  which  have  been 
wrought  and  which  continue  to  be  wrought  by 
ignorance  and  stupidity,  he  is  persuaded  that 


AN  ORATOR  AND  LOVER   OF  JUSTICE.     199 

it  is  not  possible  to  have  too  much  zeal  for 
the  diffusion  of  knowledge  and  the  spread  of 
enlightenment.  No  other  governor  of  Illinois 
has  devoted  so  much  serious  thought  or  so  much 
good-will  to  the  management  and  improvement 
of  our  penal  and  reformatory  institutions,  and 
the  great  good  he  has  done  in  this  matter  can 
hardly  be  other  than  permanent.  How  jealous 
he  was  of  our  constitutional  rights  and  liberties ! 
How  quick  to  resent  even  the  appearance  of 
infringement  upon  them! 

He  knew  and  felt  intensely  that  the  good 
which  we  cherish  for  ourselves  we  should  not 
take  from  others;  and  hence  he  abhorred  all 
wars  of  conquest,  however  specious  the  pretexts 
with  which  the  real  motives  are  cloaked.  He 
applauded  the  expulsion  of  the  Spaniard  from 
Cuba  that  the  inhabitants  of  the  island  might 
have  opportunity  to  establish  a  government  of 
their  own;  and  he  held  that  justice  and  honor 
and  every  genuine  American  impulse  demand 
that  the  same  right  should  be  conceded  to  the 
Filipinos.  What  ineffable  disgust,  what  right- 
eous wrath  the  crimes  of  some  of  our  officers 
and  soldiers  (which  have  affixed  a  brand  of  in- 
famy on  the  name  of  America)  would  have 
aroused  within  him! 

It  was  altogether  fitting  that  he  should  die 
while  pleading  for  the  Boers  —  the  most  heroic 


200  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

patriots  and  the  victims  of  the  greatest  crime 
against  liberty  and  justice,  against  humanity 
itself,  which  has  been  committed  within  the 
memory  of  living  men;  a  crime  which  Ameri- 
cans more  than  any  other  people  would  have 
denounced  to  the  whole  world  with  clamorous 
indignation  and  abhorrence,  had  not  conscience 
made  cowards  of  us  all. 

Here,  then,  let  me  close,  while  I  salute,  with 
admiration,  respect,  and  reverence  the  memory 
of  a  genuine  and  heroic  man  —  the  truest  ser- 
vant of  the  people  and  the  most  disinterested 
politician  whom  Illinois  has  known  since  Lincoln 
died. 


XIV. 

ST.   BEDE. 

[Delivered  at  the  dedication  of  St.  Bede  College, 
Peru,  111.] 


^T^HE  founding  of  St.  Bede's  College  by  the 
-*•  order  of  St.  Benedict  in  the  Valley  of  the 
Illinois  is  not  merely  an  interesting  event,  it  is 
also  a  fact  which  is  pregnant  with  promise  of 
good. 

From  this  spot  we  have  a  view  of  a  country 
which  is  as  fair  as  it  is  fertile,  and  which, 
already  populous,  is  destined  to  become  the  busi- 
est hive  of  human  industry.  Beneath  the  black 
soil  lie  inexhaustible  coal-measures  hardly 
blacker.  The  climate  is  at  once  wholesome  and 
invigorating,  and  the  people  who  have  taken 
possession  of  this  favored  region  have  in  their 
veins  the  blood  which  for  more  than  a  thousand 
years  has  nourished  the  hearts  of  conquerors 
and  subduers.  They  belong  to  that  race  which 
has  never  quailed  before  hostile  man  or  forbid- 
ding nature,  and  which  has  acknowledged  as 
its  superior  only  the  almighty  God.  The  State 


202  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

of  Illinois,  which  half  a  century  ago  was  almost 
a  wilderness,  is  now  cultivated  like  Belgium  or 
Lombardy.  Its  villages  are  counted  by  the 
thousand,  its  towns  by  the  hundred;  and 
whithersoever  we  turn  we  behold  streaming  in 
the  air  the  black  pennon  of  the  mighty  engine 
which  bears  over  the  trembling  plain  bounteous 
gifts  to  pour  them  into  the  lap  of  peoples  which 
are  separated  from  us  by  oceans  and  by  every 
divergence  of  tongue  and  character.  We  are  in 
the  heart  of  the  great  continent,  in  the  centre  of 
commerce  and  manufacture,  with  lines  of  com- 
munication, east  and  west,  north  and  south. 
There  are  interests  too,  of  a  more  spiritual  na- 
ture, which  cluster  here  to  dedicate  this  spot 
to  religion  and  to  the  cause  of  education.  Along 
this  valley  passed  the  early  explorers  and  dis- 
coverers, who  seemed  already  to  foresee  that 
the  rivers  which  make  an  open  highway  between 
the  lakes  and  the  gulf,  were  destined  by  Provi- 
dence to  help  to  bring  about  a  union  of  hearts 
and  minds  among  millions  of  men,  who  should 
have  but  one  law  as  they  adore  but  one  God.  In 
the  plain  which  lies  beneath  us  the  holy  Sacrifice 
was  offered  and  the  gospel  was  preached  when 
the  colonists  of  New  England  were  still  engaged 
in  fierce  conflicts  with  the  Indians,  when  feuds 
and  revolts  were  threatening  the  existence  of 
the  struggling  settlements  of  Virginia  and 


ST.  BEDE.  203 

Maryland,  when  Manhattan  Island  (which  the 
Dutch  had  bought  from  the  natives  for  twenty- 
four  dollars)  did  not  contain  a  population  of 
fifteen  hundred  souls.  From  the  College  win- 
dows "  Starved  Rock  "  looms  before  us,  over- 
looking the  valley  where  stood  the  original  Kas- 
kaskia  when  Father  Marquette,  the  discoverer 
of  the  Mississippi,  established  the  mission  of  the 
Immaculate  Conception,  and  on  Holy  Thursday, 
in  the  year  1675,  in  the  presence  of  two  thou- 
sand warriors  and  countless  women  and  chil- 
dren, said  the  first  Mass  ever  celebrated  in 
Illinois.  This,  alas,  was  the  last  act  of  his  noble 
and  heroic  life,  for  almost  immediately  after- 
wards he  set  forth  on  his  journey  northward 
only  to  be  taken  from  his  birchen  canoe  to  die 
in  the  wilderness. 

He  was  followed  by  Father  Allouez,  the 
founder  of  many  missions,  who,  on  the  third  of 
May,  1676,  erected  in  the  midst  of  the  village  a 
cross  twenty-five  feet  high,  which  stood  for 
years  in  the  plain  that  stretches  away  from  the 
little  town  of  Utica.  Here,  too,  Father  Ri- 
bourde,  a  noble  Burgundian  and  the  companion 
of  La  Salle,  preached  the  gospel,  and  fell  be- 
neath the  tomahawk,  when  the  Illinois  fled 
before  the  terrible  Iroquois.  Here  also  labored 
Father  Rale,  who  more  than  a  quarter  of  a 
century  later  was  murdered  by  the  English, 


2O4  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

while  offering  his  life  as  a  sacrifice  for  his  be- 
loved Abenakis.  Associations  of  yet  another 
kind  which  are  more  intimately  related  to  the 
history  of  our  own  country,  also  gather  here; 
for  the  spot  on  which  we  stand  was  once  the 
property  of  our  greatest  orator,  —  of  him  whose 
lofty  thought  and  majestic  style  have  clothed 
the  constitutional  principles  of  our  government 
with  the  splendor  of  genius,  —  Daniel  Webster, 
our  least  mortal  mind,  who  in  his  high  pre- 
science foresaw  the  diruption  of  our  country, 
and  saw  that  God  would  make  it  whole  again. 
Those  who  have  chosen  this  spot  as  the  site 
of  a  college  and  monastery  have  not  acted  with- 
out wisdom.  The  sons  of  St.  Benedict  inherit 
a  taste  for  the  beauties  of  nature.  Their  cradle 
on  Monte  Cassino  overlooks  the  dreaming  hills 
and  the  rich  valleys  which  stretch  far  away  to 
dip  themselves  in  the  blue  waters  of  the  Bay  of 
Naples;  and  from  that  eminence,  where  they 
supplanted  Apollo,  the  god  of  light  and  beauty, 
they  have  taken  flight  and,  like  the  honey-laden 
ever-busy  bees,  have  settled  upon  a  thousand 
heights,  and  on  a  thousand  plains,  to  make 
them  vocal  with  the  ceaseless  song  of  praise  and 
the  most  pleasant  noise  of  labor.  The  very 
ruins  of  the  places  where  they  abode  make  beau- 
tiful and  consecrate  the  regions  which  lie  about 
them.  The  highest  symbol  and  embodiment  of 


£7:   BEDE.  2O5 

man's  spiritual  and  infinite  nature,  of  his  faith 
in  God  and  moral  consciousness,  is  the  Church ; 
but  the  mightiest  and  most  heavenly  leader  of 
the  champions  of  the  soul,  of  the  followers  of 
the  Blessed  Christ,  is  Saint  Benedict.  If  we 
look  to  what  he  has  accomplished  he  stands  forth 
from  the  ranks  of  the  saints,  as  Caesar  stands 
forth  from  the  ranks  of  the  heroes.  As  the 
great  Roman  shaped  the  course  of  Empire  for 
more  than  a  thousand  years,  so  the  founder  of 
Western  monasticism  directed  for  centuries  the 
progress  and  development  of  Christian  life  and 
civilization.  More  than  all  others  he  understood 
how  to  harmonize  man's  yearning  for  temporal 
power  and  dominion,  for  knowledge  and  free- 
dom, with  the  genius  of  the  religion  of  Christ, 
whose  eye  is  forever  bent  on  the  eternal  and 
infinite.  The  history  of  his  order  is  the  highest 
evidence  that  faith  and  love,  humility  and  pa- 
tience, are  the  saving  principles.  They  fertilize 
the  earth,  illumine  the  mind,  strengthen  the 
heart,  and  people  heaven  with  elect  souls.  From 
his  brotherhood  sprang  the  two  popes  who  in 
their  influence  upon  the  Church  take  precedence 
of  all  others  —  Gregory  the  Great  and  Gregory 
VII.  St.  Maur,  a  disciple  of  St.  Benedict, 
carried  the  order  to  France,  where  in  a  short 
time  it  absorbed  the  flourishing  communities 
founded  by  St.  Columbanus,  and  spread  rapidly 


206  SOCIALISM  AND   LABOIt. 

throughout  the  Prankish  kingdoms.  St.  Augus- 
tin  carried  it  to  England,  and  it  became  the 
paramount  influence  in  converting  and  molding 
the  Anglo-Saxon  race.  St.  Wilfrid,  St.  Willi- 
brord  and  St.  Boniface  carried  it  to  Holland  and 
Germany,  and  these  great  Benedictines  hold 
their  undisputed  place  in  history  as  the  apostles 
of  the  Teutonic  peoples.  From  the  tomb  of 
Boniface  at  Fulda,  the  monastic  brotherhood 
spread  through  the  whole  Fatherland,  as  in 
England  it  spread  from  Canterbury ;  and  wher- 
ever the  monks  encamped,  the  forest  was  felled, 
the  marsh  was  drained,  the  school  was  built, 
and  the  barbarous  populations  were  brought 
under  the  influence  of  religion  and  law. 

In  the  midst  of  universal  ignorance  these 
monasteries  became  the  centres  of  learning,  the 
storehouses  of  all  that  remained  of  sacred  and 
profane  literature;  and  from  them  there  issued 
forth  a  ceaseless  stream  of  enlightened  teachers 
and  wise  rulers.  The  knowledge  of  what  was 
then  accomplished  led  Charlemagne  to  decree 
that  a  school  should  be  attached  to  every  mon- 
astery and  every  cathedral  throughout  the  em- 
pire. In  this  apostolic  epoch,  in  the  history  of 
the  order,  the  Benedictines  were  the  heroes  who, 
amidst  the  irruptions  of  lawless  hordes,  amid 
the  clash  of  arms  and  the  wild  confusion  of 
unrestrained  cruelty  and  lust,  stood  undaunted, 


ST.  BEDE.  2O7 

their  hearts  raised  to  heaven,  while  their  hands 
held  the  plough  and  the  pen.  They  were  the 
men  of  light  and  reason,  who  looking  up  to  the 
Father  in  heaven,  put  their  trust  in  knowledge 
and  labor:  they  appealed  from  the  brutal  cour- 
age of  the  barbarian,  who  exulted  amid  the  ruins 
he  had  made,  to  the  all-conquering  moral  power 
of  religious  faith,  which  makes  man  patient  and 
strong  in  the  consciousness  that  he  works  with 
God  to  upbuild  an  enduring  society,  where  those 
who  know  and  love  dwell  with  the  Eternal. 
These  monastic  schools  taught  the  whole  cycle 
of  human  knowledge:  philosophy,  theology, 
mathematics,  natural  science,  poetry,  rhetoric, 
and  music,  as  well  as  classical  and  sacred  liter- 
ature. Of  Alcuin,  one  of  these  monks,  the 
friend  and  counsellor  of  Charlemagne,  Guizot 
says :  "  He  is  a  monk,  a  deacon,  the  light  of 
the  contemporaneous  church;  but  he  is  at  the 
same  time  a  scholar,  a  classical  man  of  letters." 
When  we  reflect  that  the  Benedictines,  in  their 
heroic  age,  to  perfect  faith,  to  blamelessness  of 
life,  to  dauntless  courage,  to  the  spirit  of  tireless 
labor,  joined  the  best  culture  of  mind  then  pos- 
sible, we  need  not  stop  to  examine  into  the 
causes  of  their  phenomenal  success.  In  spite 
of  the  jealousy  and  envy  which  great  merit  ex- 
cites, true  worth  wins  its  way  to  the  heart  of 
man.  We  fatally  turn  to  those  who  have  the 


208  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

power  and  the  will  to  help  us;  for  we  all  are 
weak,  and  would  be  strong ;  we  all  are  ignorant, 
and  would  have  knowledge ;  we  all  are  timid 
and  confused,  and  would  follow  those  who  have 
an  eye  to  see  and  a  heart  to  lead.  When  men 
are  pure,  devout,  and  humble,  and  also  enlight- 
ened, intrepid,  and  active,  the  world  will  hearken 
to  their  voice  and  drink  the  inspiration  of  their 
lives;  and  those  who,  by  habitual  self-denial 
attain  to  knowledge  and  virtue,  become  the  nat- 
ural guides  and  rulers  of  their  fellows.  In  what 
marvelous  degree  the  order  of  St.  Benedict  has 
succeeded  in  giving  such  men  to  the  world  we 
may  see  at  a  glance.  By  the  middle  of  the  four- 
teenth century,  twenty-four  of  its  members  had 
sat  upon  the  Chair  of  St.  Peter,  two  hundred  had 
been  cardinals,  seven  thousand  had  been  arch- 
bishops, fifteen  thousand  had  been  bishops,  and 
upon  more  than  fifty  thousand  the  title  of  saint 
had  been  conferred  by  the  voice  of  the  people 
or  the  Church.  To  them  chiefly  the  world  is 
indebted  for  the  conversion  of  the  Germanic 
peoples,  for  the  upbuilding  of  the  kingdoms  of 
France  and  England ;  to  them  for  bringing  under 
cultivation  vast  tracts  of  waste  land,  for  training 
innumerable  barbarous  populations  to  till  the 
soil ;  to  them  for  keeping  alive  in  the  West  the 
traditions  of  intellectual  culture  and  for  pre- 
serving the  classical  writings.  Every  monas- 


ST.   BEDE.  209 

tery,  according  to  the  rule  of  St.  Benedict,  was 
to  have  a  library,  and  every  monk  to  possess  a 
pen  and  tablet.  To  them  also  the  world  is  in- 
debted for  their  fearless  insistence  upon  the 
principle  that  neither  obscure  birth,  nor  poverty, 
nor  bodily  weakness  is  a  barrier  to  eminence; 
that  opportunity  should  be  given  to  slaves  and 
beggars,  who,  if  they  are  found  worthiest, 
should  be  made  popes  and  kings.  To  them, 
notably  to  Gregory  the  Great,  Guido  D'Arrezzo, 
and  Ockenheim,  we  are  indebted  for  the  cultiva- 
tion and  improvement  of  sacred  music,  of  which 
our  modern  music,  the  disinctive  art  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  is  but  a  development.  I  will 
not,  however,  insist  upon  the  services  which  the 
Benedictines  have  rendered,  nor  shall  I  attempt 
to  conceal  the  abuses,  which,  here  and  there,  and 
again  and  again,  have  crept  into  the  order  dur- 
ing the  fourteen  centuries  of  its  existence. 

A  religious  order  is  but  a  human  institution, 
and  the  Church  itself,  which  is  of  divine  origin, 
has  its  epochs  of  weakness  and  decadence.  I  do 
not  now  recall  the  name  of  the  cardinal,  who, 
when  there  was  question  of  giving  the  highest 
ecclesiastical  sanction  to  the  society  of  Jesus, 
opposed  it  on  the  ground  that  the  good  done 
by  religious  orders  in  the  fervor  of  their  early 
years  is  more  than  counterbalanced  by  the  harm 
they  do  when,  as  it  always  happens,  discipline 
14 


210  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

becomes  relaxed  and  the  heroic  virtue  of  the 
founders  and  first  disciples  gives  place  to  indif- 
ference and  self-indulgence.  Whatever  truth 
there  may  be  in  this  view,  it  did  not  meet  with 
the  approval  of  the  Pope,  although  a  committee 
of  cardinals,  of  whom  Reginald  Pole  was  one, 
had  but  two  years  before  made  a  report  to 
him,  in  which  they  declared  that  they  were  of 
opinion  that  all  the  religious  orders  should  be 
suppressed. 

It  was  a  disciple  of  St.  Benedict,  himself  a 
saint,  and  a  monk  and  a  pope  as  well,  Gregory 
the  Great,  who  wrote :  "  It  is  better  to  have 
scandal  than  a  lie  " ;  and  the  monks  who  wrote 
the  annals  of  their  orders  did  not  seek  to  conceal 
the  abuses  which  had  crept  into  them.  "  I  con- 
tend/' says  St.  Bernard,  "  not  against,  but  for 
the  monastic  order,  when  I  expose  the  vices  of 
men  who  make  part  of  it."  It  was  left  to  the 
half-doubting  faith  of  weaker  ages  to  imagine 
that  the  best  way  to  make  wrong  right  is  to  deny 
its  existence. 

It  is  but  truth,  however,  to  say  that  the  abuses 
which  have  enfeebled  and  tainted  the  life  of  so 
many  orders,  have  been  misunderstood  and  ex- 
aggerated. They  have  nearly  always  arisen  from 
the  invasion  of  the  temporal  power.  Kings  and 
princes  and  statesmen,  under  the  vicious  system 
known  as  the  Commende,  which  began  to  prevail 


ST.  BEDE.  211 

early  in  the  middle  ages  and  spread  widely 
throughout  Europe,  claimed  the  right  to  place 
their  favorites  as  superiors  over  religious  houses, 
and  under  the  rule  of  such  men  the  vices  of  the 
world  fatally  made  their  way  into  the  sanctuaries 
of  religion.  But  when  the  worst  is  said  even  of 
those  whom  the  world  thus  corrupted,  all  that 
can  be  truthfully  affirmed  is  that  they  became 
self-indulgent  and  indolent,  following  the  bent  of 
human  nature,  which  inclines  to  the  love  of  ease 
and  of  the  good  things  of  earth,  drifting  down 
to  a  sluggish  life  of  mere  sensation  and  thought- 
lessness. "  Vain  will  be  any  endeavor/'  says 
Montalembert,  the  historian  of  "  The  Monks 
of  the  West/'  "  to  alter  the  distinctive  character 
of  their  social  historical  part,  which  is  that  of 
having  lived  to  do  good.  Humanly  speaking, 
they  have  done  nothing  else :  all  their  career  is 
occupied  with  peopling  deserts,  protecting  the 
poor,  and  enriching  the  world.  Sadly  degen- 
erated towards  their  decline,  much  less  active 
and  less  industrious  than  in  their  origin,  they 
never  became  less  charitable.  Where  is  the 
country,  where  is  the  man  whom  they  have  in- 
jured? where  are  the  monuments  of  their  op- 
pression? the  memorials  of  their  rapacity?  If 
we  follow  the  furrow  which  they  have  dug 
through  history,  we  shall  find  everywhere  but 
the  traces  of  their  beneficence/'  But  to  have 

i 


212  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

done  is  of  small  account.  Ingratitude  to  in- 
dividuals is  but  a  form  of  that  universal  un- 
thankfulness  which  makes  us  look  with  a  pity 
akin  to  contempt  upon  whatever  thing  or  insti- 
tution which,  having  been  great  and  strong,  is 
now  reduced  to  nullity.  Men  will  not  love  the 
Church  or  its  religious  orders  for  what  may 
have  been  done  by  them.  The  old,  who  are 
sinking  beneath  life's  rapid  current,  may  seek 
to  prolong  a  feeble  existence  by  cherishing  mem- 
ories of  things  that  have  passed  away,  but  the 
young  and  vigorous  turn  with  eager  expectancy 
to  what  is  now  capable  of  nourishing  the  mind, 
the  heart,  and  the  soul.  Our  religion  is  divine, 
not  because  it  has  blossomed  forth  in  former 
ages,  in  the  lives  of  virgins  and  apostles,  of 
martyrs  and  confessors ;  nor  yet  because  through 
its  inspiration,  genius  in  every  form  of  artistic 
expression  has  clothed  the  highest  thought  with 
perfect  beauty  —  breathing  harmony,  giving 
movement  to  stone,  speech  to  canvas,  and  to 
human  language  the  power  to  utter  immortal 
truth  and  Godlike  love,  in  cadence  and  melody, 
which  like  the  music  of  higher  worlds,  like  the 
cradle-songs  of  childhood's  lost  paradise,  linger 
forever  in  memory  to  soothe,  uplift,  and  console 
the  heart  of  man;  but  it  is  divine  because  it 
contains  the  germs  of  an  everpresent,  infinite 
life,  which  seems  to  wane  and  die  only  to  be 


ST.  BEDE.  213 

born  again,  amid  other  environments,  with  a 
vigor  and  a  beauty  which  are  always  fresh  and 
delightful 

And  it  is  the  glory  of  the  order  of  St.  Benedict 
that  though  like  the  Church,  it  has  again  and 
again  seemed  about  to  be  overwhelmed  by  the 
calamities  of  the  times  and  the  force  of  human 
passion,  yet  like  the  fair  mother  of  souls,  it  has 
again  and  again  in  the  long  course  of  ages,  risen 
superior  to  fate,  and  gathering  into  its  ranks 
the  children  of  new  generations,  addressed  itself 
to  deeds  of  light  and  beneficence. 

When  nearly  three  centuries  after  its  founda- 
tion, the  troubled  and  barbarous  state  of  the 
world  had  led  to  a  relaxation  of  discipline 
in  innumerable  monasteries,  St.  Benedict  of 
Amian  arose  and  finally  succeeded  in  reforming 
almost  the  entire  order,  which  then  entered 
upon  its  most  brilliant  period  of  service  to  the 
cause  of  religion  and  civilization,  of  science  and 
literature. 

When  the  Empire  of  the  Franks  was  invaded 
by  the  Normans  and  the  Huns,  from  the  West 
and  the  East,  who  pillaged  the  convents  and 
dispersed  the  monks,  the  general  ruin  brought 
disorder  also  in  the  cloisters.  The  ninth  and 
tenth  centuries  are  the  age  of  darkness  and  con- 
fusion. But  even  in  this  epoch  of  chaos  a  new 
and  salutary  movement  was  begun  among  the 


214  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

Benedictines.  Hitherto  each  monastery  had 
stood  alone  and  independent;  but  now  mother- 
houses  were  constituted,  which  imposed  their 
rule  upon  the  affiliated  convents  and  watched 
over  the  observance  of  discipline.  Upon  this 
plan  the  congregation  of  Cluny  was  established 
in  France,  the  congregation  of  Camaldoli  in 
Italy,  the  congregation  of  Vallombrosa  in  Tus- 
cany, and  the  congregation  of  Hirschau  in  Ger- 
many, which  have  all  a  great  and  noble  history. 
In  England  a  similar  reformation  was 
brought  about  by  St.  Dunstan,  who  caused 
the  old  life  in  its  peace  and  fruitfulness  to 
flourish  again.  During  the  eleventh  century 
new  branches  sprang  from  the  parent  trunk 
such  as  those  of  Granmont  and  Citeaux,  the 
latter  of  which  the  genius  and  courage  of  St. 
Bernard  pushed  so  vigorously  forward  that  it 
rapidly  spread  through  Europe,  and  within  a 
century  of  its  foundation  embraced  eight  hun- 
dred rich  abbeys;  and  when  towards  the  end 
of  the  twelfth  century  its  immense  wealth  began 
to  act  unfavorably  upon  discipline,  John  de  la 
Barriere,  after  a  considerable  lapse  of  time,  suc- 
ceeded in  effecting  a  reform  which  gave  rise  to 
the  Feuillants  in  France  and  to  the  Bernardines 
in  Italy.  Another  salutary  reformation  brought 
about  by  Didier  de  la  Cour  in  the  Convent  of 
St.  Vanne,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  renewed 


ST.   BEDE.  215 

the  religious  life  of  the  Benedictine  monasteries 
of  Lorraine,  Alsace,  and  Burgundy.  Intimately 
associated  with  St.  Vanne  is  the  reformation 
introduced  into  the  convent  of  St.  Augustin  of 
Limoges  in  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  giving  rise  to  the  celebrated  congre- 
gation of  St.  Maur,  which  embraced  a  hun- 
dred and  twenty-four  abbeys,  the  centres  of  a 
literary  activity  that  extended  to  every  branch 
of  science,  and  enriched  the  world  with  works 
which  will  remain  as  monuments  of  patient 
research  and  profound  erudition. 

The  French  Revolution,  upheaving  and  over- 
turning everything,  suppressed  the  Benedictine 
order  in  France,  Spain,  and  Germany;  as  in 
England  the  Protestant  Reformation  had  swept 
away  its  hundred  and  eighty-six  abbeys  and 
priories.  But  this  order  has  again  sprung  to 
life  and  established  itself  in  the  chief  countries 
of  Europe.  It  was  introduced  into  Pennsyl- 
vania in  1846  by  a  colony  of  monks  from  Ba- 
varia; and  from  the  Abbey  of  St.  Vincent  it 
has  spread  through  the  country  in  many  direc- 
tions; and  that  its  activity  has  not  ceased  the 
opening  of  this  College  of  St.  Bede  to-day  is 
evidence  enough. 

Here,  indeed,  there  is  little  to  recall  the  condi- 
tions, physical,  moral,  and  intellectual,  which 
existed  when  the  Benedictine  monasteries  and 


2l6  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

schools  were  established  throughout  Europe  in 
the  early  middle  ages.  No  barbarous  hordes 
will  come  to  destroy  these  buildings ;  kings  and 
princes  will  not  have  power  to  appoint  here  un- 
worthy superiors,  and  the  people  by  whom  they 
are  surrounded  are  neither  ignorant  nor  pagan ; 
for  the  marvelous  material  development  of  the 
West  has  not  been  unaccompanied  by  religious 
and  intellectual  improvement.  If  the  thousands 
of  Indians  who  heard  the  first  Mass  said  in 
Illinois  have  with  their  descendants  passed  away 
to  sink  into  the  ocean  of  oblivion  and  nothing- 
ness, the  faith  has  not  perished  with  them.  On 
the  contrary  it  lives  in  this  great  State  with  an 
energy  and  freshness  which  might  make  us  for- 
get that  it  comes  down  to  us  from  ages  when 
our  rude  ancestors  had  not  yet  emerged  from 
their  dense  forests  to  overrun  the  world  and  to 
fill  it  with  terror  and  ruin.  There  are  in  Illinois 
to-day  more  than  six  hundred  Catholic  churches 
and  nearly  seven  hundred  priests,  and  our 
schools,  asylums  and  institutions  of  beneficence 
are  scattered  all  over  the  State.  And  to  perceive 
how  rapid  is  the  development  of  our  ecclesiasti- 
cal organization,  we  need  but  consider  that  in 
this  diocese  of  Peoria,  where  at  the  time  of  its 
formation,  fourteen  years  ago,  there  were  not 
fifty  priests,  including  those  who  were  in  the 
five  counties  since  added  to  it,  there  are  now  a 


ST.  BEDE.  217 

hundred  and  thirty,  and  that  whereas  then  there 
were  not  in  its  present  territory  more  than  ninety 
churches,  there  are  now  a  hundred  and  seventy ; 
and  it  is  but  truth  to  say  that  among  the  strong 
and  active  people  in  the  midst  of  whom  we  live, 
none  are  more  intrepid,  more  laborious,  more 
eager  to  take  advantage  of  whatever  opportu- 
nities are  offered  to  promote  the  spiritual  and 
temporal  welfare  of  their  fellow-men  than  the 
Catholic  priests.  They  instruct,  they  guide, 
they  build,  and  while  they  insist  upon  righteous- 
ness and  plead  for  interests  which  are  eternal, 
nothing  that  concerns  the  welfare  of  man  is 
foreign  to  their  thought.  I  will  not  speak  of 
their  patriotism,  for  to  boast  of  one's  patriotism 
is  to  lay  one's  self  open  to  suspicion,  and  is 
besides  as  much  a  breach  of  good  taste  as  to 
boast  of  one's  virtue;  but  I  think  I  may  say 
without  risk  that  they  believe  in  freedom  and  in 
education  as  they  believe  in  God  and  in  Christ. 

In  their  name  and  with  them,  Right  Reverend 
and  Reverend  Fathers,  I  welcome  you  to  this  dio- 
cese of  Peoria.  You  come,  in  a  sense,  to  be  our 
teachers  and  guides;  for  whatever  fervor  of 
faith  and  piety,  whatever  illumination  of  mind 
is  shed  from  here,  will  warm  and  light  us  all. 

The  principles  which  underlie  the  religious 
life  are  divine.  It  is  forever  and  everywhere 
right  to  be  gentle  and  lowly  of  heart,  to  be  obe- 


2l8  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

dient  to  law,  to  be  chaste  in  thought  and  act,  to 
prefer  the  good  which  lies  within  us  to  whatever 
is  merely  external.  To  pray,  to  toil,  to  study, 
to  write,  to  speak,  to  live  plainly  and  to  think 
nobly,  because  such  life  is  Godlike  and  because 
it  brings  blessings  to  men  —  this  is  your  aim, 
this  your  vocation:  to  spread  peace  and  faith, 
freedom  and  good-will,  science  and  art,  light 
and  life  —  this  is  your  work. 

"  Your  rule/'  says  the  most  eloquent  voice 
ever  uplifted  in  advocacy  of  religious  truth,  "  is 
an  epitome  of  Christianity,  a  learned  and  myste- 
rious abridgment  of  all  the  doctrines  of  the  gos- 
pel, all  the  institutions  of  the  holy  fathers,  and 
all  the  counsels  of  perfection.  Here  prudence 
and  simplicity,  humility  and  courage,  severity 
and  gentleness,  freedom  and  dependence  emi- 
nently appear.  Here  correction  has  all  its  firm- 
ness, condescension  all  its  charm,  command  all 
its  vigor,  and  obedience  all  its  repose ;  silence  its 
gravity,  words  their  grace,  strength  its  exercise, 
and  weakness  its  support;  and  yet  always,  my 
fathers,  he  calls  it  a  beginning  to  keep  you  al- 
ways in  holy  fear."  You  bring  to  our  young 
and  vigorous  life,  the  charm  and  mystery  of  the 
past,  the  poetry,  and  romance  of  the  marvelous 
creative  middle  age.  You  knew  the  Rome  of  the 
Caesars  before  it  had  been  despoiled  by  the  in- 
vader and  the  envious  tooth  of  all -destroy  ing 


ST.  BEDE.  219 

time.  You  were  present  when  century  after  cen- 
tury the  onrushing  hordes  trampled  whatever 
was  great  or  beautiful  beneath  the  hoofs  of  their 
wild  steeds.  You  saw  the  new  order  begin 
to  take  form,  as  islet  after  islet  emerged  from 
the  chaotic  waste,  and  hearkening  to  the  voice 
of  religion,  men  dared  again  to  hope.  You  saw 
the  splendid  pageantry  of  that  wondrous  world 
which  lives  again  in  the  pages  of  Froissart  and 
Shakspere,  of  Bocaccio  and  Dante.  Emperors 
and  kings,  queens  and  princesses,  have  taken  the 
habit  of  your  order  and  become  your  brothers 
and  sisters.  You  have  spoken  truth  to  popes 
and  defied  tyrants.  Of  all  the  heroes  whom  Car- 
lyle  has  praised,  none  I  think,  was  so  near  to 
his  heart,  as  Abbot  Samson,  that  typical  Bene- 
dictine, whose  foot  was  planted  on  the  solid 
earth  to  maintain  all  justice  and  to  defend  all 
right,  and  whose  faith  in  the  unseen  world  was 
as  sure  and  serene  as  though  he  had  gazed  upon 
it  with  bodily  eye.  You  are  of  ancient  and  noble 
lineage;  the  awful  weight  of  a  glorious  past 
rests  upon  you ;  adown  the  centuries  a  cloud  of 
virgins  and  apostles,  of  martyrs  and  heroes, 
whisper  in  the  silent  regions  of  the  soul,  bidding 
you  gird  yourselves  for  the  ceaseless  struggle 
for  moral  freedom  from  enslaving  passion,  for 
mental  illumination  that  will  dispel  all-con- 
founding ignorance.  The  one  great  purpose  of 


22O  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

all  institutions  of  learning  is  to  bring  young  and 
sensitive  natures  into  living,  daily  and  hourly 
contact  with  generous  and  enlightened  minds. 
This  is  the  vital  part  of  education,  and  all  else 
is  mere  machinery.  Ah !  may  the  eager  yearn- 
ing youths  who  shall  crowd  these  halls  find  here 
as  friends  and  teachers,  men,  the  bare  thought 
of  whom  shall  have  power,  like  fame,  to  raise 
the  clear  spirit  "  to  scorn  delights  and  live 
laborious  days." 

But  to  exhort  is  to  reproach,  and  I  gladly  turn 
to  the  sweet  and  placid  countenance  of  our  Ven- 
erable Bede,  as  he  is  brought  before  me  by  the 
most  meditative  and  thoughtful  of  poets : 

"  But  what  if  one,  through  grove  or  flowery  mead, 
Indulging  thus  at  will  the  creeping  feet 
Of  a  voluptuous  indolence,  should  meet 
Thy  hovering  shade,  O  Venerable  Bede  ! 
The  saint,  the  scholar,  from  a  circle  freed 
Of  toil  stupendous,  in  a  hallowed  seat 
Of  learning,  where  thou  heard'st  the  billows  beat 
On  a  wild  coast,  rough  monitors  to  feed 
Perpetual  industry.     Sublime  Recluse 
The  recreant  soul  that  dares  to  shun  the  debt 
Imposed  on  human  kind,  must  first  forget 
Thy  diligence,  thy  unrelaxing  use 
Of  a  long  life,  and  in  the  hour  of  death 
The  last  dear  service  of  thy  passing  breath." 

Bede  is  the  fairest  and  noblest  figure  of  the 
age  to  which  he  belongs.  Born  in  an  obscure 


ST.   BEDE.  221 

corner  of  the  world,  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race, 
which  half  a  century  before  was  still  hidden  in 
the  darkness  of  ignorance  and  idolatry,  he 
stands  forth  not  only  as  a  historical  writer  of 
the  first  rank,  the  sole  source  of  our  knowledge 
of  a  people  whose  deeds  have  changed  the  earth 
and  filled  it  with  their  fame;  but  he  is  also  a 
scholar  of  wide  culture,  intimately  acquainted 
with  whatever  in  his  day  was  best  worth  know- 
ing. A  theologian,  an  exegete,  a  historian, 
writing  and  speaking  at  pleasure  in  prose  or 
verse,  in  Anglo-Saxon  or  in  Latin,  he  knew  be- 
sides whatever  it  was  then  possible  to  know  of 
philosophy  and  science.  Quotations  from  Plato, 
Cicero,  Seneca,  from  Virgil,  Ovid,  Lucretius 
fall  from  his  pen  as  readily  as  the  words  of  the 
gospel  itself.  He  is,  in  truth,  as  Edmund  Burke 
entitles  him,  the  "  Father  of  English  learning," 
the  typical  scholar  such  as  the  English  univer- 
sities have  always  sought  to  produce.  In  the 
midst  of  a  life  of  ceaseless  intellectual  toil  he  still 
preserves  the  fresh  fervor  of  his  youthful  piety, 
closing  the  list  of  his  literary  labors  with  this 
touching  prayer :  "  Oh,  good  Jesus,  who  hast 
deigned  to  refresh  my  soul  with  the  sweet 
streams  of  knowledge,  grant  that  I  may  one  day 
mount  to  Thee,  who  art  the  source  of  all  wis- 
dom, to  remain  forever  in  thy  divine  presence." 
And  what  simple  winsomeness  there  is  in  these 


222  SOCIALISM  AND  LABOR. 

words  concerning  himself :  "  Having  been  sent 
by  my  family  at  the  age  of  seven  years,  to  be 
educated,  I  have  ever  since  lived  in  this  monas- 
tery, where  I  have  diligently  pondered  the  Scrip- 
tures ;  and  while  observing  the  rule  and  chanting 
daily  in  choir,  I  have  always  felt  it  to  be  a 
pleasant  thing  either  to  learn,  or  to  teach  or  to 
write."  His  death  was  as  beautiful  as  his  life 
was  fair  and  fruitful.  During  all  his  illness  he 
ceased  not  from  teaching  and  dictating,  and 
when  the  evening  of  the  last  day  was  come,  one 
of  his  disciples  said  to  him :  "  Beloved  master, 
there  remains  but  one  word  to  write."  "  Write 
it  quickly,"  he  answered ;  and  when  it  was  com- 
pleted the  disciple  said :  "  Now  it  is  finished." 
'  You  say  truly,  it  is  finished,"  the  Saint  replied. 
"  Take  my  head  in  your  arms  and  turn  me,  for 
I  have  great  consolation  in  looking  toward  the 
holy  place  where  I  have  prayed  so  much."  Then 
he  passed  to  the  unseen  world. 

Oh,  happy  omen,  that  this  college  and  mon- 
astery are  to  bear  a  name  so  full  of  warmth  and 
light !  Here  too  shall  be  found  servants  of  God, 
lovers  of  men,  bright  stars  of  the  monastic 
brotherhood,  who,  here  where  the  echo  of  the 
war  whoop  died  away  but  yesterday,  shall  walk 
in  the  ways  of  peace  and  of  wisdom,  shall  teach 
knowledge  and  shed  upon  fair  young  souls  the 
light  of  faith  and  the  glow  of  heavenly  love. 


ST.   BEDE.  223 

As  the  harvest  reaped  in  these  fertile  fields  is 
sent  over  seas  and  oceans  to  nourish  millions ; 
as  the  coal  underlying  our  feet  is  distributed 
through  distant  regions  of  the  North,  to  warm 
and  cheer  the  homes  of  thousands,  so  shall  there 
gather  here  from  year  to  year  a  swarm  of  youths 
athirst,  who,  drinking  deep  at  this  open  fountain 
of  truth  and  spiritual  life,  shall  scatter  through 
the  land  —  centres  of  influence  from  which  high 
thought,  true  courage,  and  noble  aims  shall 
radiate.  If  I,  who  by  birth,  by  training,  and  by 
love,  not  less  than  by  the  visible  environments 
of  my  actual  home,  belong  to  the  West,  may  be 
permitted  to  express  an  opinion  upon  the  char- 
acter of  the  western  people,  I  will  say  that  those 
persons  mistake  who  imagine  that  the  energy 
which  has  wrought  the  material  transformation 
of  which  the  wide  world  is  witness,  is  that  of  a 
people  which  can  ever  rest  content  with  merely 
material  achievements.  Whether  our  origin  be 
Anglo-Saxon,  Celtic,  or  German,  we  come  of 
the  world's  best  blood,  belong  to  races  to  whom 
the  ideals  of  religion  and  culture,  of  freedom 
and  righteousness  have  ever  appealed  with 
irresistible  force. 

If,  with  incredible  industry  we  have,  within 
half  a  century,  leveled  the  mountains  and  filled 
the  valleys  and  made  straight  the  ways,  who 
can  doubt  that  all  this  has  been  done  to  enable 


224  SOCIALISM  AA?D  LABOR. 

a  free  people,  unhindered  and  unhampered,  to 
enter  upon  the  infinitely  more  arduous  task  of 
rising  to  heights  of  intellectual  and  moral  ex- 
cellence? The  spirit  of  democracy  bids  us  look 
at  the  man,  not  at  his  birth  or  surroundings: 
but  if  —  while  we  think  lightly  of  aristocratic 
descent,  of  the  trappings  of  office,  the  vain  sound 
of  titles,  and  the  vulgar  show  of  wealth  —  the 
best  culture  of  mind  and  the  noblest  devotion  of 
soul  leave  us  unsympathetic  and  unmoved,  what 
power  can  save  us  from  becoming  hopelessly 
common  and  inferior?  Ah!  we  shall  not  rest 
content  until  religion  infuse  through  all  our  life 
the  charm  of  reverence  and  gentleness,  of 
modest  and  polite  breeding,  making  impossible 
the  coarseness  and  vulgarity  which  are  still  so 
manifest ;  until  the  best  culture,  opening  to  our 
view  the  whole  past  of  the  race  and  all  the 
realms  of  nature,  break  down  the  hard  and  nar- 
row walls  which  confine  every  ignorant  soul, 
giving  to  each  one  of  us  the  dignity,  greater  than 
that  of  princes,  which  belongs  to  virtue  and 
wisdom.  The  impetus  given  to  our  material 
development  is  so  irresistible  that  we  cannot 
imagine  its  progress  should  be  arrested ;  and  the 
machinery  of  our  political  life  will  be  kept  in 
some  kind  of  order,  we  cannot  doubt,  by  the 
patriots  who  are  ever  willing  to  sacrifice  their 
ease  for  the  care  and  worry  of  office;  but  what 


ST.   BEDE.  22$ 

we  need  above  all  things,  and  what  I  believe  we 
most  yearn  for,  is  the  man,  the  influence,  the 
institution,  with  power  to  nourish  the  life  of  the 
soul;  to  give  us  faith,  hope,  and  love;  to  give 
us  wide  knowledge  and  great  thoughts;  to 
strengthen  and  refine  our  sense  of  beauty;  to 
make  us  appreciative  of  whatever  is  true  or 
divine  or  fair  or  noble. 

For  some  such  purpose,  this  college  has  been 
founded.  May  God's  blessing  rest  upon  it;  may 
good  men's  hands  be  outstretched  to  help  it; 
may  those  who  year  after  year  shall  enter  its 
halls  return  to  their  homes,  like  merchants  from 
distant  lands,  laden  with  rich  store  of  wisdom 
and  love ;  and  some  day,  when  we  who  are  here 
shall  sleep  with  our  fathers  in  the  cool  earth, 
let  a  loving  hand  write  above  its  portals  Bede's 
epitaph : 

"  O  Bede,  God's  servant  and  bright  star 
Of  the  monastic  brotherhood  ! 
From  regions  which  do  lie  afar, 
To  the  whole  Church  thou  hast  brought  good." 


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